C ollector’s Our Annual Greeting Card to the World Editio

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DECEMBER 2005

heaven on earth Our Best Writers and Photographers Reflect on the Spirit of Place

Tony Hillerman • David Muench • Alberto Ríos • Charles Bowden • Gary Ladd • Jack Dykinga • Craig Childs • Lawrence W. Cheek • and more . . . DECEMBER 2005

Navajoland page 24 {also in this issue} {highways on television} The Great Snowstorm of 1967 by Betty Reid Arizona Highways magazine has inspired an independent weekly 46 Christmas in Arizona Territory television series, hosted by Phoenix TV news anchor Robin Sewell. The Picture Rocks page 25 Pioneers found peace and happiness during the holidays, half-hour program can be seen in several cities in English and Spanish. And the Winner Is . . . by Jerry E. Airth despite Indian threats and sparse supplies. For channels and show times, log on to arizonahighways.com; click on “DISCOVER ARIZONA”; then click on the “Arizona Highways goes to Colorado Plateau page 26 50 Spirit of the Poinsettia television!” link on the right-hand side. Lessons From Camp by Charles Bowden The multicolored plants, natives of Mexico, {specialfeatures} add special charm to Christmas. White Mountains page 33 Spirit of Place page 6-45 A Blue Christmas on the Mountain by Jo Baeza online arizonahighways.com For the December issue, we asked our writers and photographers {departments} Take time to experience the joy of the holiday season. Scottsdale page 34 to illuminate the spirit of place by describing special locations Go to arizonahighways.com and click on our “Holiday Guide” for: An Airplane in the Hay by Ron Carlson or memories that have shaped their lives. Here’s what they have 2 ALL WHO WANDER • A handbook on unique Arizona holiday celebrations for you: Gila River page 35 4 VIEWFINDER • A statewide listing of holiday events Peace in a Shady Grove on the Gila by Gregory McNamee 52 ALONG THE WAY PLUS, get our regular monthly online-only features: HUMOR Gene Perret “volunteers” to go Christmas shopping. Navajoland page 13 White Mountain Apache Reservation page 36 54 DESTINATION ONLINE EXTRA Arizona ranchers find Japanese ingenuity Getting to Goldtooth by Tony Hillerman Down to the Cornfield by Kathy Lacapa mutually beneficial. 56 HIKE OF THE MONTH Yavapai County page 14 South Phoenix page 41 WEEKEND GETAWAY Visit Tucson’s west side to experience The Ranch-shaped Heart by Terry Greene Sterling The Star That Followed El Niño by Stella Pope Duarte Sonoran Desert splendor. TRAVEL THROUGH TIME Discover a few of Arizona’s lost Flagstaff page 15 Sabino Canyon page 42 Spanish treasures. A Delicate River of Light by Roger Naylor The Canyon That Broke a Fall by Lawrence W. Cheek this page A Cape Royal vista offers a sunset view of the North Rim of the Grand EXPERIENCE ARIZONA Use our statewide calendar of events. Canyon. richard danley n To order a print of this photograph, see information at right. Nogales Wash page 16 Outback Arizona page 43 front cover Clouds suffuse the Grand Canyon below Mount Hayden and Point Memory of a Summer Snow by Alberto Ríos Mapping the Way to Self-reliance by Bill Broyles Imperial. richard danley n To order a print of this photograph, see information at right. Photographic Prints Available back cover Stars turn into streaks of light behind Monument Valley’s famous n To order photographic prints, call (866) 962-1191 Cabeza Prieta page 23 Grand Canyon page 44 n Mittens during this eight-hour exposure. kerrick james To order a print of this or visit www.magazineprints.com. Dry Tranquility by Craig Childs Death, Dreams and Fishing Poles by Pete Aleshire photograph, see information at right. by Peter Aleshire, editor {all who wander} DECEMBER 2005 VOL. 81, NO. 12

Publisher WIN HOLDEN they have forgotten those essential things and best light I’ve ever felt washed over me. Then I Editor PETER ALESHIRE learned them afresh from their own children. stood and watched them; my grief shrank to a Senior Editor BETH DEVENY Heart-stopping Light Can Heal Even Heartbreak Managing Editor RANDY SUMMERLIN The moment we reached the island, the boys ripple of sand. Research Editor LORI K. BAKER leaped from the boat, Seth in the lead as always Finally, I turned back to the boat. Editorial Administrator CONNIE BOCH in a Place That Smoothes the Mind and Noah following him like a duckling imp with Freed by the wind from my careless mooring, Director of Photography PETER ENSENBERGER Photography Editor RICHARD MAACK he apaches believe that certain for I was his shadow. He dropped out of grade a crooked grin. it floated 50 feet from shore. places smooth your mind and make school after an argument with the teacher, but I hastily looped the bow rope around a rock “The boat, the boat,” I cried as I stripped off Art Director BARBARA GLYNN DENNEY Deputy Art Director BILLIE JO BISHOP you wise if you just listen to them. As spent one week with me in college attending my before turning to survey the photographic my clothes. Art Assistant PAULY HELLER T this issue demonstrates, so do our writers and classes. His extravagant joy in learning about possibilities. Noah and Seth ceased from their dancing and Map Designer KEVIN KIBSEY photographers. Is it the same for you? Is that ancient China and constitutional law has made The boys had run out across a ridgeline riffle watched me in wonder. Arizona Highways Books Editor BOB ALBANO why you read Arizona Highways, to find those me revere books ever since. He died hard, but of red sand. Seth was dancing along the ridge, I plunged into the cold water, swam through places that smooth the mind? Perhaps you will only after the prostate cancer got into his brain. intoxicated by the light. Noah shadowed him the choppy seas, clenched the bow rope in my Production Director KIM ENSENBERGER Promotions Art Director RONDA JOHNSON write to me about the places your heart has The last time he remembered me, I took him out with demented, sorcerer’s apprentice leaps to teeth and somehow breaststroked it back to Webmaster VICKY SNOW embraced, as a cottonwood root grows around a of the nursing home to sit at the end of an airport ensure that his small feet landed precisely in his shore against the wind. Director of Sales & Marketing KELLY MERO stone. Send me a paragraph about your favorite runway watching the jets pass overhead. He was a older brother’s footprints. They each cast a manic The boys laughed until they rolled on the Circulation Director HOLLY CARNAHAN place and why you love it, then I’ll post it on our child in his glee. shadow 30 feet long. ground when I emerged from the water, naked

Finance Director BOB ALLEN Web site (arizonahighways.com). Just write me So I had come wounded to this intersection of They danced in perfect tune to the wind and and exhausted. at the e-mail address below or the address on water and sky — the most beautiful of lakes made the water and the sky and the rock. Chilled, I sat on the red sand in the last Information Technology Manager Healing Place CINDY BORMANIS our masthead by drowning the most exquisite of canyons. I was struck dumb. For the surge of a yearning, light — perfectly happy with the spirit of that Noah and Seth Aleshire dance across FOR CUSTOMER INQUIRIES In the meantime, enjoy this issue as But seeing my boys roll about in the I wished that Walt could see them. But I perfect place. Lake Powell sands OR TO ORDER BY PHONE: mystery novelist Tony Hillerman finds burnished light, I felt a renewed throb of life. understood then that I must see it for him, as my Call toll-free: (800) 543-5432 in light so rich it In the Phoenix area or outside the U.S., the perfect Navajo dog, writer Larry Cheek They have taught me most of what I know, boys must one day watch for me. can ease grief. Call (602) 712-2000 revisits the rock in a canyon where he found although they won’t understand that until Belatedly, I fumbled with my camera as the [email protected] peter aleshire Or visit us online at: solace, iconoclast Charles Bowden watches arizonahighways.com For Corporate or Trade Sales: the stars with a brilliant old man at the end of DOLORES FIELD his journey and Navajo journalist Betty Reid Call (602) 712-2045 remembers the blizzard that broke her heart in E-MAIL LETTERS TO THE EDITOR: boarding school. In visual counterpoint, the [email protected] best landscape photographers in the country Regular Mail: capture photons bouncing off the places they Editor 2039 W. Lewis Ave. love, freezing them in this celebration of light Phoenix, AZ 85009 and place. Governor Janet Napolitano As I read these wise, sometimes-funny essays Director, Department of Transportation Victor M. Mendez and marveled at this magical light, I found myself thinking of a place that healed me. ARIZONA TRANSPORTATION BOARD It was a decade ago as my rented boat Chairman Dallas “Rusty” Gant, Wickenburg Vice Chairman Richard “Dick” Hileman, spattered across the choppy surface of Lake Lake Havasu City Members James W. “Jim” Martin, Willcox Powell. My sons Noah and Seth, then 9 and Joe Lane, Phoenix 11, sat in the open front, laughing and gasping S.L. “Si” Schorr, Tucson Delbert Householder, Thatcher in fear and delight. I muttered a faint curse, Robert M. “Bob” Montoya, Flagstaff realizing I’d once again overstayed the light. I’m

INTERNATIONAL REGIONAL MAGAZINE ASSOCIATION a lackadaisical luffer of a photographer, light- 2004, 2003, 2001, 2000, 1998, addicted but undisciplined. Real photographers 1992, 1990 Magazine of the Year WESTERN PUBLICATIONS ASSOCIATION plan their whole day around sunset, but I 2002 Best Overall Consumer Publication blunder about until the light suddenly red-shifts 2004, 2002, 2001 Best Travel & In-transit Magazine 2003, 2000, 1999, 1998, 1997, 1995, 1993, 1992 toward magic before searching frantically for Best Regional & State Magazine foreground. SOCIETY OF AMERICAN TRAVEL WRITERS But I’d gotten so caught up in exploring FOUNDATION 2000, 1997 Gold Awards with my boys that the only foreground in sight Best Monthly Travel Magazine was a rusted-red slump of an island. So I spun the wheel, which rolled Noah into Seth and provoked a fresh flurry of elbows and laughs. Arizona Highways® (ISSN 0004-1521) is published The sound lanced a gleam of happiness through monthly by the Arizona Department of Transporta- tion. Subscription price: $21 a year in the U.S., $31 the shadow of my grandfather’s recent death. in Can­ada, $34 elsewhere outside the U.S. Single copy: $3.99 U.S. Send subscription cor­respon­ Walter Jennings grew up poor and built his own dence and change of address information to Ari- zona Highways­ , 2039 W. Lewis Ave., Phoenix, AZ glider soon after the Wright Brothers proved it 85009. Periodical postage paid at Phoenix, AZ and at additional mailing office. POSTMASTER­ : send possible. He ran his own construction business, address changes to Arizona High­ways, 2039 W. Lewis Ave., Phoenix, AZ 85009. Copy­right © 2005 by married, divorced, remarried and lived a the Ari­zona Department of Trans­­por­­tation. Repro­ duc­tion in whole or in part without­­ permission is rich life, brimming with joy, loss, courage, prohibited. The magazine does not accept and is not responsible for un­solicited ma­ter­ials provided insecurity, love and regret. I loved him fiercely, for editorial con­sideration.

Produced in the USA arizonahighways.com ARIZONA HIGHWAYS 3 {viewfinder} by Peter Ensenberger, director of photography by Peter Aleshire, editor {all who wander}

Burning Bush? Early morning light in the Cabeza Prieta National Wildlife Refuge seems to outline an ocotillo’s spindly arms with tiny orange tongues of flame.

Stark on the northern horizon, the Granite Mountains form a cool backdrop to a lavish display of Sonoran Desert plant life in the Cabeza’s Sheep Mountain Wash. n To order a print of this photograph, see page 1.

scope of their searches to only the top one or two places that stoke their creativity the most. Then I asked them to tell us why these places speak to them. Their insights will surprise you and, hopefully, stimulate you to search out and identify your own inspiring Arizona places. Poring over these images was one of the most interesting photo edits I’ve ever worked on. Knowing the photographers and their stock files as I do, I could have predicted some of their choices. Obviously, a large body of work from one location suggests a powerful connection between land and landscapist. But other submissions caught me off-guard. Some photographers have secret devotions to little-known, off-the-beaten-path locales that few of us have seen. Not only are the images surprising, but finding photographers willing to share their secret spots with us is equally unexpected. It’s akin to trout fishermen giving away the locations of their favorite streams where the lunkers hang out. As I edited the stacks of photographs, I tangled with this chicken-and-egg conundrum: Do special places in our lives evoke stronger responses, or do they become special to us because of our experiences there? Which came first, the inspiring land or the successful photo shoot?

PETER ENSENBERGER (2) PETER On this question, I lean to the former. Certain landscapes stir my sentient spirit. I’m drawn to places that are tranquil, where I can relax and see the world Drawing Inspiration From the Land with clarity. Wrapped in remoteness, I breathe easy and my heightened awareness leads me to quiet s a photographer, it’s in my job description recesses where light and shadow come to rest. In these to artfully render my surroundings no matter places, the work seems effortless. A where I am. But some places inspire my best Conversely, some places demand a steeper learning work and hold a connection for me that I can’t explain. curve. Visiting a location for the first time can result in a Why does a particular landscape seem to merge bit of wandering before I begin to really see it. I have to with one’s own life? What forces enrapture us in these work harder for good photographs, revisiting these spots special places? again and again before they give up their best images. In this, our holiday issue, we explore the meaning of We all have our favorite places where we’re absorbed “place.” We share the beauty of Arizona’s special, often by the natural surroundings. For me, that locus is sacred places and recount the personal experiences Cabeza Prieta National Wildlife Refuge along our that connect us to them. border with Mexico. Not heroic, as are the buttes and Assembling this year’s December issue photography canyons of the Colorado Plateau, this swath of Sonoran portfolio, I asked our contributors to select their Desert is subtle by comparison. In the immense space favorite images of the Arizona locations that inspire of the Cabeza, things once important are diminished them. Normally our call for photography for each by scale. Perhaps it’s the oblique nature of this place December’s portfolio elicits an avalanche of stunning that makes it so acute for me. images. But this year I cajoled them to narrow the That’s the spirit of place. Peter Ensenberger can be reached at online Learn how to capture the innocence and joy of children in your photographs at arizonahighways.com (Click on “Photography”) [email protected]

4 DECEMBER 2005 arizonahighways.com arizonahighways.com ARIZONA HIGHWAYS 5 GRAND CANYON The Royal Treatment “The extended peninsula of Cape Royal on the North Rim of the Grand Canyon offers P compositional choices in almost any light and weather conditions. This photograph was made during a seemingly endless flow of intense thunderstorms passing L through the Canyon. Dark clouds and heavy showers inundated the village at the North Rim, about 10 miles away, while I experienced only light sprinkles at Cape A Royal. Severe weather kept the skeptics indoors, allowing me to enjoy the spectacle of clouds in the Canyon all by myself.” C steve bruno Steve Bruno of Tempe prefers using his large-format camera when shooting the Grand Canyon. Despite having to carry heavy equipment, he likes to hike to the Canyon’s more remote SPIRIT OF PLACE areas for seldom-seen views. do places have a spirit? Do places shape us? Save us? Teach us? Do we love certain E places for their intrinsic qualities or because of things that happened to us there? And do writers and visual artists like photographers see the same thing when they look at a place? We wondered, since Arizona Highways is really all about that elusive and spiritual sense of place. So we asked some of the best writers and photographers in the country to tackle those questions. We said: Send us a story or a picture about a place that has inspired you or changed you — or share with us a Christmas memory connected to such a place. The personal essays and images that follow are what they gave us — for you.

6 DECEMBER 2005 arizonahighways.com arizonahighways.com ARIZONA HIGHWAYS 7 P

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HARCUVAR MOUNTAINS Chasing Wildflowers

“Every spring, hoards of photographers intoxicated by wildflower pollen charge off to secret desert locations in search of perfect blooms. Feverishly working my own choice plot, I heard a shout from a passing truck, ‘You really oughta see Alamo Lake!’ I thanked her, but figured she’s from out of state and probably considers any wildflower display to be good. Still, I spun my wheels in a two-hour sprint to find the Harcuvar Mountains ablaze in the year’s best wildflower display. As I pumped film through my camera, I reflected on the woman’s gracious gift. The moral of the story: When someone who loves the desert gives me a tip, I’ll always get going and pack extra film because the next image waiting for me may be my best.”

jack dykinga After 30 years and countless miles chasing wildflowers and rainbows, Jack Dykinga is still in love with Arizona. His latest book, Jack Dykinga’s Arizona, was released last fall.

n To order a print of this photograph, see page 1.

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LAKE POWELL Water Wonder “Lake Powell is insanely photogenic, thanks to the interaction of the lake and the surrounding landscape. The interface of lake and land produces strong graphic patterns, the foundation of most pleasing photographs. As its water level fluctuates, its bays, islands, sandy beaches and side canyons evolve, and the lake’s edge offers endless photographic potential. To me, Lake Powell’s spirit — although admittedly blemished by environmental questions — is pure magic.”

gary ladd Gary Ladd lives in Page between the three parks he most enjoys photographing: Glen Canyon National Recreation Area, Grand Canyon National Park and Vermilion Cliffs National Monument.

n To order a print of this photograph, see page 1.

10 DECEMBER 2005 arizonahighways.com arizonahighways.com ARIZONA HIGHWAYS 11 P

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264 wanders up and over the Hopi First, Second and Third E mesas and past the Hopi villages. Marie and I, never able to resist such temptations, took about six hours to make that journey and thus rolled down the Third Mesa slopes toward Moenkopi in early afternoon. We figured we were miles from the U.S. Route 160 junction at Tuba City and about 7 miles from the place where, according to my NAVAJO INDIAN RESERVATION AAA map, the road to Goldtooth joins 264. We slowed down and started looking out the passenger side window for the junction. Getting to Goldtooth We saw nary a sign of a junction, nor of any road of any sort leading southward across the rolling and treeless plains of Ward by Ton y H i l l e r m a n Terrace. We drove slower and slower, down into Moenkopi Wash, through Moenkopi village, the residents of which were engaged he Navajo lady at the Tuba City trading post responded in a ceremony down below the highway and not available to to my question, “How can I get to Goldtooth?” with a handle questions. question of her own: So we continued onward to the Tuba City trading post, to the “Why in the world would you want to get to Goldtooth?” Navajo lady and her instructions on how to find Goldtooth. Since another customer was awaiting her attention and an “Go back through Moenkopi on Highway 264,” she told us. honest answer would have taken a long time, I just said I’d never “When you get out of the village, across Moenkopi Wash, go been there and was curious. back up the side of the slope there, have your window rolled But now that I’m writing to the readers of Arizona Highways, down and be watching the side of the pavement. In just a mile I’ll try to explain. or so you’ll see a place where people have been turning off the I had been searching my AAA “Indian Country Guide Map” highway and out into the sagebrush. That’s where you turn off. looking for an isolated place to have two characters meet to Then it’s about 15 miles to Goldtooth.” commit a dastardly deed in one of the Navajo Tribal Police mys- teries I was trying to finish. Our high, dry Arizona-New Mexico- by my calculations, it was 15.4 miles from the point we Utah landscape is endowed with a wealth of such places, but jolted off the pavement onto the dirt and a drive I would recom- for plot reasons I wanted one near the Hopi Reservation-Navajo mend to anyone who wants a view of the quiet, silent, empty MILLER CANYON Reservation border. I also prefer places endowed with the inter- world as it was before sloppy, careless humanity invaded it. It’s esting names our ancestors gave their communities. Lots of hardly necessary to tell Arizona Highways readers that there was Fallen Autumn those available, too, but I had already used Lower Greasewood, no traffic, no traffic sounds, no fumes and only the dust kicked Blue Gap, Steamboat, Burnt Water, Old Leupp, Lower Colonias, up by our own wheels. Only sagebrush, rabbit brush, snake- “Tucked in the Huachuca Mountains, Miller Rotten Bananas and even both Upper and Lower Nutria. I was weeds and the endless variety of demure little blossoms pro- Canyon offers the quintessential Arizona looking for something new. duced by dry country grasses. To our left, the cliffs of the nearest autumn, close enough to home for me I found Goldtooth on my map, 24 miles southeast of Tuba Hopi mesa dappled by cloud shadows, to the right the ridge of to explore on day trips. On this particular City on the great rolling emptiness of Ward Terrace. That name Gray Mountain and the Coconino Rim and in the blue distance outing, the brilliant fall color I sought seemed to me as interesting as the mystery I was writing, but far ahead the shape of Newberry Mesa and the butte that once had browned and fallen to the ground. Stuck with a bushel of metaphysical I had never been there. I spent time remembering what aban- reminded some antiquarian of Montezuma’s chair. And over it lemons, I tried my hand at lemonade. doned villages of Arizona’s Painted Desert are like, mixed them all arched an immense deep blue high-country sky, decorated The canyon gave me elements to work together, and applied that to Goldtooth without going to take here and there by the rising columns of clouds promising brief with — fallen leaves, flowing water and a look at Goldtooth itself. A lot of my readers tell me they like afternoon thundershowers. moss. I found this view and headed home my landscapes better than my stories, so my rule has been I must also report that Marie and I also saw one windmill, with just one image in my camera.” accuracy. The violation bothered me. So Marie and I headed for far west toward the Colorado River, one windmill a bit closer Goldtooth. out in the sagebrush flats toward Third Mesa, and three cows randy prentice munching on some grass discovered amid the sage. The road a great trip Using his experience as a photographer, , 160 miles, more or less, from Window Rock to wandered silently south, following the ups and downs of the Randy Prentice developed photography- Moenkopi on State Route 264. It’s an easy three hours and 15 management software that is currently minutes drive if you can resist the endless urges to duck into used by many professionals. By night, such fascinating places as the Kinlichee Ruins (now a Navajo he’s a blues guitarist playing regularly at Tribal Park) or the old Hubbell Trading Post, (now a national venues around his hometown of Tucson. monument) or the Jeddito Chapter House (in the wee bit of Navajoland surrounded by Hopi Reservation) or historic Keams n To order a print of this photograph, see page 1. Canyon, or the countless places that tempt the curious as State

arizonahighways.com ARIZONA HIGHWAYS 13 P Painted Desert, in no more hurry than were we. side until my amused father handed over the pillowcase-sized

L The odometer told us we had used up the allotted 15 canvas mailbag. miles since leaving the pavement. And there ahead, off to The mail was my link to the outside world. I remember sitting exhausted by rejection, I stumbled outside, smack into a breath- A the right of our road, rose the square shape of a building by the fire and readingThe Arizona Republic, starting with “Dick stealing, soul-waking winter scene. of dark stone. Tracy” and “Mary Worth” on the comics page. I also read as much Snow had fallen through the afternoon — one of those deli- C I am an octogenarian now, and am told that when one YAVAPAI COUNTY of Punch magazine and the Sunday New York Times as I could cious high-country snows, a languid deluge with flakes the passes the 80th year, one can expect to have one’s head so understand. I read The Saturday Evening Post, Life and Look. These size of kittens. Snow clung now to every surface, bowing pine jammed with memories that some lose their precision. But The Ranch-shaped Heart publications informed me about the world beyond the ranch. branches, mantling huddled aspens and smothering roads. A E I remember when I saw Goldtooth about 20 years ago — all The years passed. walloping stillness cradled the campus. the windows were missing from the great old structure, by T e r ry Gr e e n e St e r l ing My parents guided me away from the ranch life because they Yet several minutes passed before I even noticed the snow. My and the doors as well, but the walls remained sound. It didn’t think it had a future. I moved to Phoenix to go college, fell eyes were drawn to the most delicate light imaginable. A sea of had been, so I was told, a school building once, but from n 1951, my parents and I moved from Los Angeles to a in love, married, had kids and stayed in the city. When I was feisty, flickering flames stretched along the ground in all direc- whence its students came no one could guess. There were the remote cattle ranch in Yavapai County. I was 2 years old. 25, my father sold the ranch because he was dying. I raised my tions. Paper bags lined the sidewalks. Inside each bag, a fistful skeletons of long dead trees around the structure, the only genu- My mother and father were in their early 40s and had never family in Phoenix. For years, I rarely spoke of the ranch, but I of sand secured a lit candle. ine trees we’d seen on our journey across Ward Terrace. lived on a ranch. Our new home was a redwood-framed island thought of it every day. Elf lanterns, I thought. Hundreds of shimmering elf lanterns Across from what I will call Goldtooth School stood the only in an ocean of grama grass. The house had a stone fireplace in I could not forget the rhythmic clanking of the windmill when illuminated the edges of the night. What else could they be? occupied residence, a Navajo hogan with attendant sheep pen each room, a library with Errol Flynn’s a breeze turned its blades, the raspy touch of an alligator juni­ I snow-crunched back to the dorm over sidewalks lined by and storage shed. I walked over, hoping to find an occupant who My Wicked Wicked Ways hidden on per tree, the panicked whinny of a colt separated from a mare, those magical and mysterious lamps, like wading in a river of could tell me something about Goldtooth, but no one was home the top shelf, a living room with flag- For years, the roar of the creek after a summer storm, the alfalfa-tinged light, afraid to exhale lest the moment somehow be snatched except a large dog, resting in the shade by the hogan doorway. stone floors and a dining room with breath of my pony trotting through the meadow, the pop of pine away, until halfway there, when I stopped in my tracks. A bone- He showed the courtesy so typical of the Diné, rising to his feet a lasso glued around the perimeter of I rarely spoke logs as I huddled near the fireplace readingLife magazine. jiggling wave of joy suddenly welled up inside me, and I did to smile at me as I approached. But the ceiling. Besides our house, there Of course, I became a journalist. the only thing I could. I danced like the characters in A Charlie he also did his guard dog duty, and was a bunkhouse for the cowboys, a of the ranch, I wanted to emulate the writers who had informed me, the Brown Christmas. . . . the the smile began showing teeth when foreman’s house, a maintenance shed, ranch kid, about the places I knew nothing about. Through the With riffs of Vince Guaraldi’s piano erupting in my head, I cut I got too close to the door. a commissary and a shipping corral. but I thought years, I have tried to give voice to those who have no voice — the loose, all floppy and free and fearless. When teen­age hormones quiet, silent, We had no phone, no television and misunderstood desert, the dying river, and, yes, the rancher are afoot, emotions bubble just below the surface, uncensored with goldtooth adequately often, when the Kohler power genera- of it every day. struggling to stay on the land. and vibrant. Joy means joy. empty explored, the question became tor acted up, no electricity. Our nearest I will write until I can no longer write, because even though Bottom of the heart, Cheshire- “Where next?” with the only choices neighbors lived more than 10 miles away, and the nearest town, I have not seen it for 31 years, the ranch is the wild, quiet place cat grinning, up on happy feet Elf lanterns, I world as it being back where we had come from Selig­man, sat about 40 miles to the northwest on Old Route 66. that will forever guide my heart. joy. I indulged. or onward. Onward on the only To get there, you had to take a dirt road formerly used by stage- I found out later the lights thought. Hundreds was before Goldtooth road takes you 10 miles coaches. The stage stop, a cabin made of crudely hewn logs, still Terry Greene Sterling of Paradise Valley remains a ranch girl at heart, were luminarias, a holiday south to a junction. There, another stood beneath an oak tree; my father used it to store salt licks for exploring and writing about Arizona’s wild places for publications across the cus­tom in the Southwest. dirt road leads 11 miles northward to the cattle. To visit a doctor, we didn’t take the stagecoach road. nation. She is a three-time Virg Hill journalist of the year, a contributing editor Lumi­n­­arias began as a Span­ of shimmering elf sloppy, to PHOENIX Magazine and a faculty associate at Arizona State University. reconnect you with 264 at Coal Mine Instead, we drove our wood-paneled Ford station wagon some ish tradition of lighting bon- lanterns illuminated careless Mesa if you don’t wish to continue 50 miles on a bumpier dirt road to Prescott. fires along the roads to guide southward another 26 silent miles Our ranch spanned grassland, juniper-sloped hills and pine- people to Midnight Mass on humanity across the Hopi Reservation to Indian forested mountains. It was a wild place. Coyotes caroled on FLAGSTAFF the final night of Las Posa­das, the edges of the Route 2. We chose southward. our front lawn, bulls bellowed and pawed dust in the pasture, which commemorates­ the invaded it. As a footnote, I might add that we mountain lions screamed from the rim rocks. The land nurtured A Delicate River of Light Christmas story of Mary and night. What else did finally meet the only resident of generations of fine Hereford cattle and strong quarter horses. It Joseph’s search for a room in Goldtooth. He was repairing a fence also nurtured me. by Roge r Nay lor Bethlehem. could they be? about 4 miles from his hogan and stopped work long enough to The only child on the ranch, I played outside whenever I could. The tradition continued tell us that the nearest place on the road ahead that could offer I fed frijole sandwiches to my paint pony, Robin, built forts in lagstaff nestles amid pine-crested hills about 7,000 feet into modern times with the decoration of rooftops, walls and us either gasoline or water was Leupp, which was about 50 miles oak groves, explored rocky Indian ruins scattered along the above sea level, at the foot of Arizona’s tallest mountains, sidewalks as a way of guiding travelers to their destination. away. If we needed same, we should take the shorter route to creek beds, on top of hills, on the sides of mountains. the San Francisco Peaks. Thirty years have passed and luminarias are more common- Coal Mine Mesa. There was no school bus for the two-hour ride to town and Like all newly arrived freshmen attending Northern Arizona place, but for me they’ve lost not a molecule of their magic. Every “How did my dog treat you?” he asked. back, so when I was old enough, I attended boarding schools. I University in Flagstaff, I was told the soaring mountains acquired Christmas I take out that weathered college memory, shaking it When I reported it had been dutiful but polite, he nodded, couldn’t wait until summer, when I got to hang around the cow- their name because you could see the lights of San Francisco like a snowglobe until it transports me back. I relish the stillness, smiled and said, “A Navajo dog.” boys. Some of these men were in their 60s and 70s and fussed from the summit. I was also warned that on cold nights, packs the lights and the wonder of it all, and relive that sense of pro- over me like grandmothers. They taught me to see the beauty in of wolves loped down the slopes and prowled the streets in found calm, followed by a geyser of joy. That is Christmas. Tony Hillerman originated in 1925 as an Oklahoma farm boy, got his all wild creatures, even the ones we had to kill. They protected search of meat. I later discovered these were outlandish false- Now if you’ll excuse me, I feel a dance coming on. early education in an Indian school and discovered the West in 1945. A me — just as my parents tried to protect me from their own hoods, but to a gullible Ohio boy who had seen little beyond flat World War II veteran, he has been a police reporter, newspaper editor and stresses — dry years, rising costs, low cattle prices, family fights fields and farmland, anything seemed possible in this dramatic If Roger Naylor learned only one thing in college, it was that he belonged in journalism professor, and he has had more than 30 books published. He over managing or selling the ranch. landscape. Arizona. After traveling the country as a stand-up comedian, he settled into lives in Albuquerque with Marie, his wife of 45 years. the life of elegant leisure enjoyed by all freelance humor writers. Today he My father officed in faraway Prescott. He would often go to The week before Christmas break, I spent long hours holed lives, and dances, with his wife in Cottonwood. town to negotiate cattle sales, pay taxes, make phone calls, buy up in the campus library alternately cramming for finals and groceries, buy horseshoes, buy pinkeye medicine and get the flirting with the girl working the returns desk. She possessed mail. The mail! I would wait by the back porch eating a home- piercing hazel eyes and cheekbones so high I imagined teardrops grown tomato with salt. When my father’s car rolled up the evaporating before hitting the ground. driveway, I couldn’t wait for it to stop. I banged on the driver’s Just shy of midnight one evening, with synapses misfiring and

14 DECEMBER 2005 arizonahighways.com arizonahighways.com ARIZONA HIGHWAYS 15 P arroyo this far north, I hid my bike then walked until I found a

L turn, an elbow in the direction of the wash. It was sharp enough that a bank had formed, with enough of a mix of earth and A Johnson grass and debris to step firmly on. As I walked to it, I began to take notice of something changing. Old cottonwood C trees, in all their gray and brown and arthritic postures, sur- rounded the wash at this juncture. The water in the wash was NOGALES WASH moving along. I could hear its ease. The sun was warm. E Then suddenly, the air filled with the white seeds that cotton- Memory of a Summer Snow woods drop. They were everywhere, and made a filtered light. Perhaps they had been in the air all along and I had simply been by A l be rto R íos at the wrong angle to see them. Now I saw them, and everywhere. These were more than the flotsam and jetsam of airborne dusts he Nogales Wash is a dangerous place now. An innocu- and curled fronds. I stood there, struck, though I did not know ous arroyo, it occasionally carries water through a part that word. What I thought of at that moment was snow. And I still of the Santa Cruz Valley that the Santa Cruz River itself, do — but it was Arizona snow, summer snow, this place’s snow. It farther east, doesn’t catch at first. Starting in Mexico, the wash was falling all over me, all around, onto everything. It had the color crosses underneath the border, heads north and eventually joins and the quiet and the embrace I would indeed later understand with the Santa Cruz River in southern Arizona. snow to have. But this was something of its own. As a north-flowing wash, it mimics something of the move- In that moment I remembered Christmas cards with snowy ment and practices of people in the area. People have tried to use houses I had seen, and thought of Christmas itself. Snow equaled its tunnels underneath the two adjacent border towns to cross Christmas — curiously, even here in the Arizona desert, where over to this country. nothing was further from the truth. Moreover, border factories have perhaps been lax in what Christmas. I made the connection to snow more than to some- they’ve let settle into its water. On a recent visit, I threw a rock thing religious. The moment was so clearly one of what I would into the water causing a drop to splash onto my wife’s jeans—the call well-being, and I was in its thrall. I had walked without droplet left a white bleached mark. plan, I had found this place by surprise, my shoes fit, my pants Signs everywhere caution not to drink the water that in years fit, nothing hurt, I wasn’t breathing hard. The moment held me, past we used to swim in. It stank even back then — or rather, it enough so that I felt myself not as myself but as instead one had a distinct scent of its own. I did not find it altogether dis- more part of this place at this moment, one more cottonwood pleasing, as it was the smell of adventure itself. seed wafting in the afternoon, one more branch, one more glint I lived about 4 miles outside town, in the rolling hills of gentle of light. For a split second, I was part of something greater than horse and cow country, in a fabled pass known for centuries as I was. I felt smooth and fitted and light and perfect. the Pimería Alta. From the beginning, the wash was the one I certainly didn’t stand there thinking all this. But I did feel it. place I was never supposed to go because it was across the high- I felt it so deeply I have never forgotten. way. So, of course, it’s where I spent most of my time. Moments of pure well-being do not present themselves to us The flash floods and sewage effluent filled the wash with the often. I can only think of two or three times where I felt this detritus of two cultures, so sensibility so wholly. They are many small things that made a momentary portal, through up daily life — the straw hats The moment held me, enough which for that instant we take and cigarette packs and small, a step or two, showing us some- flattened balsa wood cajete so that I felt myself not as myself thing perfect. They shore us up candy boxes from the Sonora, for the rest of our lives and are Mexico, side, the beer bottles but as instead one more part of our secret bones. FOUR PEAKS WILDERNESS and car-part packages and Christmas itself in this small throwaway pens and lighters this place at this moment. postwar suburb was a magical Quiet Contrasts from the Arizona side, and the event, with paper bag lumi- things that joined them, the things that everybody had, every- narias throughout the neighborhood, and all the decorations “Four Peaks Wilderness is one of my favorite landscapes. I come here to body used, the dolls and the shoes and the colored bits of plastic one could imagine. But this was public Christmas, everybody’s embrace its solitude and the peaceful feelings it evokes. As I made this from all manner of containers. All of this mixed into the mud of Christmas. My personal version came in summer, and only to me. photograph, I was inspired by the contrast between the vast, arid Sonoran Desert and the snowy peaks. I have many fond memories of this area the banks, decomposing, all of it like a big loam fruitcake. My thanks for all things springs from something palpable in that and the people who have hiked it with me. Its beauty has drawn me For me personally, the wash came to hold the chronicles of a moment. Christmas, of a sort, was where I found it, not where I back again and again. Every time I return, it is like seeing an old friend.” boyhood, and was in that way a personal library, if not of ideas was told to find it, and it has lasted beyond so much else. ‘I come here to embrace its solitude then certainly of the things from which ideas later spring. and the peaceful feelings it evokes.’ Alberto Ríos spent his first 25 Christmases on the border, where rich morey milbradt it was late afternoon tradition reflected the ready confluence of cultures. The borderland holiday , but not so close to dinner that I Morey Milbradt lives in Tempe with his wife, Nancy, and had any worries about being whistled home by my father. The season, from December 12 to January 7, presented itself best, Ríos says, on the kitchen table, everything tasted by the tongue and, to this day, told by it. their four pets. He has been photographing the West for afternoon was still mine. 14 years, often working with his panoramic camera to I rode my red Western Flyer bike farther than normal on this capture the broad expanses of the Western landscape. summer day, just for the enjoyment of seeing what would come next. When I got to the barbed-wire fence that guarded the n To order a print of this photograph, see page 1.

16 DECEMBER 2005 arizonahighways.com arizonahighways.com ARIZONA HIGHWAYS 17 P

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WHITE MOUNTAINS Field of Dreams

“While photographing in the White Mountains for a book on Arizona, my wife and I came upon this fabulous field of blooming thistles draped in spider webs. The evening light wasn’t quite right, so we returned the next morning to find dewdrops still clinging to the delicate webs. We called our friends, the late Bob Clemenz and his wife, Suzy, and insisted they join us. We met early the next day and wandered the fields together, shooting in the morning light, experiencing the spirit of friendship. It’s a memory that makes this place so special for us.”

larry ulrich With his wife, Donna, Larry Ulrich has been traveling and photographing for more than 30 years. They live in a redwood forest next to the ocean in Trinidad, California.

n To order a print of this photograph, see page 1.

18 DECEMBER 2005 arizonahighways.com arizonahighways.com ARIZONA HIGHWAYS 19 GRAND FALLS Seasonal Sight

“The first time I glimpsed Grand Falls, I was shocked to find it bone dry. I didn’t know then that to see Arizona’s largest waterfall in action, you must arrive during the spring runoff in March or April. While I could only imagine the floodwaters of the Little Colorado River cascading into the nearly 200-foot-deep canyon, I clearly saw where dark lava from a nearby volcano had changed the course of the river and created the falls. Few places so plainly reveal their geologic story. When the falls are flowing, it is a miracle in the desert.”

ralph lee hopkins Ralph Lee Hopkins of Santa Fe, New Mexico, published his first images inArizona Highways while still a geology graduate student at Northern Arizona University in Flagstaff. A description of the creation of Grand Falls is included in his popular guidebook, Hiking the Southwest’s Geology.

n To order a print of this photograph, see page 1.

20 DECEMBER 2005 arizonahighways.com arizonahighways.com ARIZONA HIGHWAYS 21 P

This was not the kind of water that could make war L on the desert. It was a secret, spoken so softly that the surrounding desert could not hear. If the sun ever found A it, it would vanish in days. This was an artifact of the last C rain, which had sheeted over the face of this isolated hunk of granite and caught in this dark place where a block of CABEZA PRIETA NATIONAL WILDLIFE REFUGE stone had fallen, leaving a hole like a pulled tooth. Bees had come seeking the only water in their range. They dis- E Dry Tranquility tended their abdomens with water to carry back to cool and moisten their hive. by Cr a ig C h i l ds In this guarded hole were about 20 gallons of rainwa- ter. As I looked in, bees started bottlenecking against my body, here is a desolate place in the heart of the desert covered troubled by my movements. Nervous, I pulled my head back- with rough urchins of stones. A dry wind sails among ward into the light. its cacti and broken ranges of rock. It is perhaps not an This particular island of granite was so heavy and white with attractive place, ugly in some eyes, terrifying in others. There is quartz that it was hard to look at in the middle of the day. After very little water, and even now people walk into it and often do I found it, though, it became a landmark for me, a place I could not return. rely upon for water when traveling through here. I came back But when you hear that the desert is tragic and that its inner- later, on the morning of a crescent moon and again in the last most reaches are meant for nothing but anguish, do not believe light of evening, climbing and drinking just enough fresh water what you are told. Go and see for yourself. Stand on the parched begged from these bees to keep walking, refreshed. ground of Cabeza Prieta National Wildlife Refuge, looking across This is startling country, full of secrets, yet utterly exposed. brittle mountains that rise like icebergs in the distance and you Naked ridges stand high over broken-down cliffs. I remember may be struck by an once setting a camp along one of these ragged mountains around inalienable sense of tran- Cabeza Prieta, getting up on a tightrope ridge and dropping my Lake Powell quility offered by no other gear. It was sunset and the molten light broke through gaps and land. The dome of sky This was not the notches, sending shadows for miles. I could see far south, into feels like a shelter, and the Mexico, the crescent shapes of great dunes, while all around me ground is laid bare with kind of water were seas of desert broken by arid mountain ranges. I arranged the cleanness of a prayer. that could make my belongings carefully, making sure nothing came too near This is the deep desert, a the edge to my left or right where a cup or a pen would fall a place with a sharp sort war on the thousand feet from my reach, twanging against rocks, sailing of peace, a beauty that into the air and vanishing into the desert below. I stayed tight, comes only when we open desert. It was a my knees drawn up to my chest. There was just enough room our eyes to these long and to lay down a sleeping pad and my bag. desolate miles. secret, spoken That evening I watched the sun clip out behind the horizon, Once on foot out there, and after the royal colors of twilight passed, stars swamped the I came upon a block of so softly that sky. There was no moon, and so the land beneath me was black. I white granite 600 feet felt as if this mountain were holding me up in a realm of oblivion, tall. After a day of carry- the surrounding lifting me like a newborn into this great and perilous world. ing my camp on my back, Above me were stars. Below was a darkness deeper than space. I slipped into this first desert could Maybe this sense of desert is truly terrifying, where you find shade. I had pulled off yourself pitched into the void. But at that instant also comes a EGGSHELL ARCH my shirt and was resting not hear. calm like no other. Infinitude saturates the dry air. It feels like against the granite when flying, like floating out of this body to touch a place some call No Bridge Too Far I noticed a low humming heaven and some call hell. You realize here that it exists beyond from nearby. I stood and followed it, realizing there were bees in heaven and hell, a place so perfect and endless that such labels “As a lover of natural arches, discovering a new one is great fun. I first saw the rock. Bees meant water. I found them in a crack where they do it no justice. Eggshell Arch through binoculars. I used Internet technology to plan my busied themselves in and out of a deeper, shadowed cavity. As It is desert, a truce made between day and night, between dry approach by road, an advantage not available to earlier generations of I came closer, these commuting insects thudded into my bare and wet. It is a peace that comes from before time and will last photographers. While similar to Canyonlands National Park’s landmark Mesa tom till Arch, the much thicker Eggshell Arch on the Navajo Indian Reservation back and chest. far beyond our final memories. Although he photographs I had not seen water for seven days other than what I carried extends farther out from its canyon rim. My hiking buddy had no qualms landscapes around the world, with me. In this hole, however, I could see a smooth, shaded mir- Craig Childs, now of Colorado, is an Arizona native and author of 11 books of about walking across this little-known treasure of the Colorado Plateau. Tom Till prefers the light and The span is a natural wonder, bridging a sea of canyons and mesas.” ror vibrating slightly against the wing beats of several hundred natural history and travel. He is a columnist for the Los Angeles Times and land of the American Southwest. a commentator on National Public Radio’s “Morning Edition.” He chooses to live in Moab, bees. The color quieted me, like a purple dusk sky suddenly Utah, very close to the natural masking the hot white of noon. I bunched my shoulders and arches of Arches National Park. squeezed in as far as I could, reaching until my fingers touched water. Circles spread over the barely lit surface. The circles fell ‘The span is a natural wonder, bridging a sea of canyons and mesas.’ back on themselves. n To order a print of this photograph, see page 1.

22 DECEMBER 2005 arizonahighways.com arizonahighways.com ARIZONA HIGHWAYS 23 eyes strained to imagine my parents walking up the concrete P PICTURE ROCKS basketball court. L Snow began to fall. The heavens seemed to explode in giant flakes that swirled and danced and blinded me by the window. And the Winner Is . . . A Mrs. Green, our residential aide, ordered us to “get into the the confluence of the meandering Little Colorado River and the C wings,” sit down in rows, knees flush with the straight lines of roaring Colorado River. We made our way through the snow to by Je r ry E. A irt h SAGEBRUSH, NAVAJO INDIAN RESERVATION the square linoleum floors and arms folded across the chest. She my late maternal Grandmother Jane’s hogan, which my family ordered us to sing jolly Christmas songs. called the “Flying Hogan.” nder a cold desert moon, on Christmas Eve, I The Great Snowstorm of 1967 We bellowed holiday carols without understanding their sig- My father checked the chains on the tires for the descent into took a walk around my desert subdivision in E nificance until our throats hurt. When Mrs. Green took a break, a deep ravine that entered Sagebrush from the east side. That dirt Picture Rocks, 2 miles from Saguaro National by Be t t y R e id we changed the English lyrics to “Up on the Housetop” to words road was clogged with snowdrifts. Everything was covered in a Park, 15 minutes’ drive from Tucson’s western boundary. in Navajo about an amusing imaginary elderly white-haired white blanket, and an eerie silence hung in the air, broken only It was approaching midnight. All the presents had been weep when I dream about Sagebrush, a place known to my grandfather falling head-first into a stove pipe, for our hogans by the sounds of the truck’s engine. opened. Most of my neighbors’ houses were dark, except those Navajo family as Tsaa Tah. and canvas tents lacked chimneys. When Mrs. Green reappeared, It took all day to reach Sagebrush camp. The next day I learned in the decoration contest. While the country fought about civil rights and the we quickly switched back to English. why my family was late picking me up at the boarding school. On every side, plaster coyotes arched necks to bay the moon, Vietnam War, my family, the Manygoat and Bitter Water clans, No one came to pick me up that Friday or the next day or They were buried in snow. hanging forever in the night sky; real coyotes yipped—some- lived in hogans made of stone, canvas tents and a house built by the next as the snowdrifts Snow powdered every inch of Sagebrush. A thick fog cloaked where west — out in the night, chasing who knew what. Not cot- my father at Sagebrush. Our winter sheep camp in the arroyo collected below the large the camp, and the sheep had not grazed in days. tontails or jackrabbits; they were in their burrows, I was sure. cradled three flocks of sheep next to a corral made of limestone. picture window. My parents, my brother Eisenhower and my two cousins had Plastic deer muzzles bobbed — driven by invisible motors, Sage grew tall in the deep ravines. Shorter sage covered the My relatives I felt abandoned. I con- earlier waded 2 miles through hip-deep snow over and down powered by secret batteries — on desert acre lots of premium mesas and rock outcroppings. Trees were nonexistent, except jured explanations. Maybe hills to find a clearing to send a distress signal. Through the manufactured homes. for a lone piñon or juniper every few miles. came out of my father forgot me. Maybe portable radio, Navajo Chairman Nakai said he would send a On the industry-sculpted eaves, ceramic doves hung sus- My family held tight to their earth-based faith and strived to he made a detour to a Yei­ bulldozer if the isolated sheepherders would walk to the nearest pended by steel wires, amid fragmented aluminum icicles. live in harmony with the land. But sometimes we had to fight the their homes bichei dance, the nine-day land clearing or main road, build a fire and use a mirror to signal And, over all, lights of every size, every description, every elements to keep our animals and ourselves alive. Nightway healing ceremony the moving machine. color — red pinpoints to blue spotlights — were strung on every In the winter of 1967, a giant snowstorm hit the Navajo and watched. common in winter. He was But the bulldozer never came and the group returned to thorn, every prickly pear cacti spine. No desert form left out. Nation and buried Sagebrush and my family. Then-Navajo leader For too long, a dancer. Maybe no one Sagebrush. Then a transport plane appeared, looped around the I hunched down in my Raymond Nakai called it the “worst weather disaster in modern reminded my aunt or my camp, found a clearing and dropped bales of hay. My relatives coat, wondering what the Navajo history.” While my relatives were marooned at Sagebrush, they had dad to fill up the gas tank at came out of their homes and watched. For too long, they had real coyotes, deer and doves I was a 9-year-old second grader stuck at Tuba City Boarding Gap Trading Post. watched snow fall out of the sky. This time it was hay. thought of this maelstrom of Plaster coyotes School, a military-style residential hall and elementary school. watched snow My tears fell as I watched My Aunt Jeanette and late Grandmother Edith and my father man-driven competition. I had barely learned to recognize shapes — what the teachers snow blanket the playground. watched as the dry, square alfalfa exploded after hitting the snow. A shadow ghosted over arched necks to called numbers — and utter a few words in English. I lived in fall out of the No sign of my father. My father, intending to gather the hay in a blanket and deliver it me — a barn owl, judging by TC-7, a tan building with an orange belly. The days seemed like to the flock, began to trek to the clearing. the wing­spread — hunting a bay the moon. . . . When the winter holidays arrived, the entire campus shut sky. This time it months. One morning, I Suddenly, another aircraft that made loud clapping sounds last par­ty­goer mouse. down and the Navajo children went home for the break. So on quit my vigil at the window appeared out of the western arroyo. It startled my father. The In the welter of lights and Plastic deer muzzles the Friday before the Christmas holiday, I joined friends near was hay. and started an assigned downdraft of the helicopter spun him, and the blanket blew away. images beating at me, I felt the picture window of the TC-7 living room, anxious to spot our chore of buffing the floor Grandmother Edith hollered at my father, “Tsi’ biyaa’ anilyed,” everything blurring into one, bobbed — driven by parents walking into our dorm. with the monster of a pol- or “Run under the rock ledge,” as the helicopter circled above the creating patterns of light — I longed for home. The faint scent of sage, greasy mohair, wet isher with its long cord and puffed-up belly bag. camp. The Sagebrush arroyo had caves and rocks that looked like meaningless — splashing invisible motors. earth and human sweat screamed “home” to me. I especially Suddenly, I saw movement out of the corner of my eye. Was awnings. Jeanette, now in her 80s, laughed about that memory. behind my eyes. missed my father’s dusty black felt cowboy hat with the silver that a glimpse of my father’s hat? I flung the buffer aside as the The helicopter dropped food rations and canned food in bur- It was cold. Late. I should be getting home. band and his slight smile when he teased me about my mud- hat moved and the silver band emerged. It was Dad! lap sacks. Yet I kept walking, and at the end of one loop of decorated covered face after I played hard in the wash. An electric shot of happiness raced through me. I ran and col- Armed with shovels, my father, brothers and cousins scooped houses I saw rising from the moon haze a three-story cathedral “Asdzá áh Binii’ Likizh,” he would say affectionately, meaning lected my jacket and stood by my father, who I thought was tall a well-defined path up a hill south of our camp and then onto of light — a modern steel-beamed farmhouse Notre Dame with “The Woman with Grime Splattered on Her Face.” and handsome. I noticed he wore the black rubber garden boots Sagebrush. Sheep and goats were unleashed on the trail days later. strings of lights strung to outline every door, window and peak I also missed the feel of my mother’s layered velvet shirt lined with plastic bags that had held the powdered milk given to My cousin Rose, then 19, today remembers the cold that fol- of roof. This was it. The sure-fire winner! pinned together right below her chin with a large safety pin and my family by the U.S. government. He looked exhausted. lowed the storm. It was so cold that when the flock moved away I took one more long admiring look at the cathedral of light the three bobby pins she placed at the nap opening of her shirt. I was going home to Sagebrush. When I reached my aunt’s from their resting spot, they left behind tuffs of wool and mohair and started back home. And when I needed my nose cleaned, my mother would use the black GMC truck, the cab was full. My cousins were wrapped frozen to the earth. I reached the end of my street. The moon still hung, a cold eye, tip of her long calico skirt and called me “Yuhzhee,” which meant in layers of quilts and tucked into the truck bed like a can of The elders later marked December 1967 as the winter when above my hat and all the hard, sparkling roofs. “A Twig of a Girl” or “Shorty” in Navajo. packed sardines. hay was delivered from the sky. It’s a time and place I will not Then I saw something that halted me in my boots. But going home meant breaking ties with Tuba City Boarding We left the paved road 2 miles past The Gap Trading Post. forget because the arroyo covered by Sagebrush offered a haven On an unsold, far-corner lot, a giant saguaro cactus loomed School and its running water, electricity, warm bunk beds, clean The truck crawled up a ridge and traveled west in the vicinity of for my extended Navajo family, and it remains a place I visit in over the desert floor, lifting huge spined arms, casting a bene- sheets, fleece pajamas and three square meals. It meant leaving my dreams. diction of beauty and serenity on all, making the desert ani- ABCs and 1, 2, 3 lessons, and the church lessons — a confusing mals — coyotes, rabbits, even the ghosting owl, and me — the instruction in religion for me because my own Navajo faith Betty Reid has been a journalist for many years and writes for The Arizona true winners on this desert Christmas Eve. believes in the powers of Mother Earth, Father Sky. Republic. She grew up on the western edge of the Navajo Nation, a stone’s Sagebrush beckoned my little heart, as the parents of my throw from the Colorado River, and now lives in Phoenix. Jerry E. Airth still lives in Picture Rocks, and continues to take moonlight friends trudged into the dorm and signed them out. My little walks through his desert neighborhood, even on Christmas Eve, seeking inspiration for poems, stories and essays.

24 DECEMBER 2005 arizonahighways.com arizonahighways.com ARIZONA HIGHWAYS 25 P the land in places and wildlife was scarce as was water. In those

L nights, the stars hung low, barely clearing a man’s head. I’d look up and catch a bat hunting maybe 8 feet off the ground and A worry that it might bang into a constellation. This is the kind of country some call godforsaken and some of us find hard even C to speak of without feeling we are violating some trust. Much of western Arizona falls into this realm of being godless to some and all but sacred to others. Low mountains, wide sprawling val- E COLORADO PLATEAU leys, rivers empty of water, the sky too big for a soul to bear. He’s standing now, the air still warm, the moon not yet up, Lessons From Camp stars singing overhead. His face is lost in the blackness, that fine carved face with skin like leather, full thatch of gray hair as he by C h a r l e s B ow de n bumps up against 80, the body lean, all these features bearing the sign of the desert days and nights that fashioned them. ere’s what I’ve learned: Stay off the summits, steer He’s inventoried some of his losses, the beloved wife gone too clear of the water holes, avoid the big walled canyons soon, friends missed around the campfire, kids grown and out with those Hollywood colors. Keep going. The place in the world. He’s good with these things, after all he studies the is always the same — the wind comes up from the beginning of dreams and loves of the long dead and digs up their bones and time, the night falls like a hammer and when I look down there their tools and tries to slip inside their minds. And he knows is more dirt than green, more love than dust. Someone will want at his age he cannot go on forever and this he accepts with- to make a fire — stop them if you can. The flame beats back the out complaint. But suddenly, out of nowhere, he lurches into night and robs the sky of stars. Of course, there is no tent. You eat, this other thing. He’s still standing, head slightly cocked back sprawl out on a bedroll and talk flows, at first fast, that as his old eyes take in the stars and he city beat to the conversation. You half-listen, but really says, “There’s got to be more than this, all that matters is the night breeze coasting through the something else, something the old boys creosote, the soft swishing coming off an ironwood that I felt the who left their stone-age litter around here first poked up from the Earth about the time Columbus knew, something. Religion, immortality, set sail in the deep waters that became us. shrouds not the right words for what I feel. Just But slowly the talk falters, not so much ceasing as something. I can feel it out here. I know ebbing. Then the real words appear because the silence of time fall it exists whatever it is.” makes it safe for meaning. I’ve found this place on the I know it also. We were friends and like Colorado Plateau, under the brow of desert mountains, down and all friends we did not question each other on the flats where the heat soaks the soil and fries the on matters of faith. But I knew where world deep into the night. By dry rivers, in the lightning the cool he was headed that night even though flashes and blows of summer monsoons. But it is always I can’t put a word on the matter myself. the same place, that patch of earth where resistance and stare of the Just a place. That’s why I go to that place, acceptance mix and blend into some state where words past in though that place can shift, be in different fail and yet the heart begins to speak and we hear a places at different times, still it is out there. tongue we had all but forgotten. my eye. It is hardly scenic, seldom noted, almost The old man insisted on a fire, had to have his steak, always beyond the normal campground but now the flame has died down and there is noth- and if I took a photograph of that spot in ing but a few embers among the ash on the desert floor. He’s the morning, no one would pay much attention to the image I been coming here for decades, knows every ancient trail and brought back. The day has been sweat, the dinner good, the night he’s mapped hundreds of miles of them, footpaths lost to all a blessing and then the stars and the feeling of being alone van- but his keen ancient eyes. He’s mired in the archaeology of ish and the dreams seem to walk the Earth close by the cooling early man, those ancestors we hear as whispers when we pick ash of that fire. up an old scraper or hammer on the rock litter of the sites. Always the coyotes cry out, and this feels good and right. Part For years he had a day job, then on the weekends hit the des- of the place, part of what I can’t put a name to, and neither could ert and did his collecting on his own. By the time he finished my late friend. But it’s there, and can be known and felt. Over he fit the ground better than anyone had in maybe a century. morning coffee, none of this is ever mentioned. That’s the way We’d camp, do nothing and then when the heat left the air of the place when you finally get to it. PINE CREEK FALLS and dusk arrived, sip a little mescal and wait for the ghosts to come. Sometimes the ghosts were thousands of years old as he Charles Bowden walks the line, whether it runs between a man and a beast, conjured up stone-age folk who’d shared the same ground and a city and a desert, the quick and the dead. Or the Grand Canyon that Enviably Green sometimes the same campsite. He could imagine their hungers bedevils the human heart. His most recent book is A Shadow in the City: “Is this scene of greener-than-green mosses and lush ferns clinging to Confessions of an Undercover Drug Warrior. He hunkers in Tucson with a and late at night — not always but sometimes — he could whisper jerry sieve moist rock really Arizona? Arizona is known for desert. It can’t be green like malevolent tortoise, a witch and a poodle. He has lived in the Sonoran Desert their very dreams. Of course, all of this was privileged, nothing Jerry Sieve of Carefree feels honored this, can it? But, yes, it is Arizona. This incongruously verdant spot offers since age 12, and, of course, has never recovered. a special moment in a special place. Pine Creek Falls ranks among the like what he put in his scientific papers. And all of these whis- to have spent the past 28 years myriad intimate landscapes that make exploring Arizona such a joy.” pers were gospel truth and I felt the shrouds of time fall down exploring Arizona and discovering special landscapes. Photography and the cool stare of the past in my eye. has helped make it possible. All around was rock, often basalt. Dunes slowly loped across n To order a print of this photograph, see page 1.

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SAN FRANCISCO PEAKS The Snow King

“When I shouldered my camera pack in the dark that frigid morning, the temperature hovered near 10 below. Laboring up a steep hill through fresh snow, I paused to catch my breath and look back at my tracks — postholes in the drifts. Setting up to shoot, my fingers went numb fumbling with my tripod and camera. I intently watched the sunlight work its way down from the top of the San Francisco Peaks and tinge the tips of snow-covered pines. Momentarily forgetting the cold, I exposed several sheets of film before allowing myself to study the spectacle in front of me. Snow-laden tree limbs bowed to the mountain like subjects to their king. As I hoisted my pack to leave, I felt the subtle warmth from the rising sun and mulled the privilege of walking this Earth — even in 2 feet of snow.”

robert g. mcdonald A self-described “youthful geezer,” Robert G. McDonald, 68, of Flagstaff, thinks he can shoot winter shots for a few more years by donning arctic clothing with hand warmers in the pockets. He dreams of hibernating in a warmer climate in future winters.

n To order a print of this photograph, see page 1.

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WEST CLEAR CREEK Clearly Paradise

“We all hold an image of paradise in our imaginations, of a place so full of grace we doubt it can ever exist except in our dreams. For me, West Clear Creek is the realization of that dream — the embodiment of the Lost Eden. Like any mystic land, it is hidden and hard to reach. For 40 miles it follows a journey of spring- born water, shut in by soaring, golden walls. Surprises await me at every turn. A travertine- mound spring that forms hanging gardens, lush canopies of alder and willow and waterfalls galore, from dancing plunges to ozone-producing torrents.”

nick berezenko Nick Berezenko considers himself blessed to live in Pine, only 15 miles from West Clear Creek, which he calls a pure and elemental world of its own.

n To order a print of this photograph, see page 1.

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L had dropped off somebody’s truck, so I got out to move it. I brushed off some snow and saw long black hair. I A stopped breathing. The lump groaned. It was a young C woman all curled up. I tried to lift her up. “Leave me alone. I want to die,” she slurred. WHITE MOUNTAINS I drew a deep breath and grabbed her arms again. “You picked a bad place,” I said. “The highway is back there.” E A Blue Christmas on the Mountain She opened her eyes. She wasn’t very big, so I grabbed her around the middle and manhandled her into my warm by Jo Ba e z a pickup. “I’ll take you home,” I said. “Where do you live?” “Whiteriver,” she said. She fumbled in her jacket, brought out rom alpine forests of spruce, fir and aspen to stately a pack of cigarettes and lit one, then dropped it on the floor. stands of ponderosa pine, the White Mountains are a I picked it up. “You’re gonna burn up my truck,” I said. land of eternal Christmas. I turned around and headed down the road toward Whiteriver. The mountains are sacred to the N’dee, the Apache people. It was snowing hard. About 2 miles past Hon-Dah Junction, she They are sacred to all of us who live here. We call our home started laughing. “I don’t want to go to Whiteriver,” she said. “the Mountain.” It gives us beauty, peace and wisdom for the I pulled over. “Why did you tell me you live there?” I asked. asking. “It’s just part of the little game I’m playing,” she said, and In Arizona’s high country, all seasons have a splendor of laughed again. their own, but the Mountain shines brightest at Christmastime. “Okay. No more games. Where do you want to go? I’m tired.” Fifty-foot ponderosas outside businesses are draped with lights. She stared straight ahead for a while, then said, “Do you Families go to the forest to cut trees for their homes. People from know Kaia?” Mexico open up their condos for a week of skiing and shop- “I know her. Do you want to go there?” ping. Communities produce electric-light parades, Christmas “Sure. Take me to Kaia’s,” she said. pageants, home tours, crowded stores and Santa Claus in a heli- We crept along on the snowy Lake Powell copter. A jet flying over sees little towns blinking like stars in road all the way to McNary. She’d the darkness. Nowhere is the Christmas Spirit more joyfully The lump sobered up enough to give me observed than here. directions. I drove up to the house But for many years in the midst of all this goodwill, the Spirit groaned. It and honked. The porchlight went of Christmas was lost on me. I dreaded Christmas. I just wanted on and a woman came out. it to be over. I wanted to sleep through it. Christmas only made was a young “She was passed out on the me think of all the people I loved who were gone. road in front of my house,” I said. When my kids were growing up, I did my best to get into woman all “I almost ran over her. Can she the spirit of things. When they were grown and I was alone, I stay here?” stopped pretending. Even though the old boxes came down curled up. “Yes. Thank you. I’ll take care of from the attic and I tacked up pine boughs and strung lights her,” Kaia said. across my porch, my heart wasn’t in it. To make matters worse, I tried to We got her out of the truck and friends and relatives kept inviting me over for Christmas dinner into the house. When I got home, so I wouldn’t be alone. But I wanted to be alone, to spend the lift her up. it was 3:30 a.m. and my fire was day quietly waiting for it to pass. My dogs and cat didn’t care if I nearly out. I built up the fire and sat wasn’t cheerful as long as they had toys in their stockings. ‘Leave me in the recliner a while, petting my About 10 years ago, God gave me an attitude adjustment for cat. A smile came over my face. SUNSET CRATER Christmas. alone. I want The sun on fresh snow was No matter how blue I felt, I always went to church on Christ­ dazzling the next day. I drove to Young Love mas Eve. Our little church was packed shoulder-to-shoulder to die.’ McNary to see how the lump was for Midnight Mass. I was singing in the choir. Candles glowed, doing. Kaia came out and thanked “I love Sunset Crater because it’s so young. The volcanic eruptions that made incense wafted, poinsettias circled the altar. A big Douglas fir me again. She said, “I’ve known this girl a long time, and I’ve the crater were among the last verses in the incomprehensibly long and glittered with lights beside a crèche of the Nativity. The Light of never known her to drink. She broke up with her boyfriend.” eventful saga of Arizona’s creation. Less than a thousand years old, this the World slept in his mother’s arms. I never knew the name of the woman who cured my Christ­ landscape is a work in progress. Scattered shrubs and trees mark the nearly david empty canvas of raw lava and reddish cinder dunes as Nature continues wentworth After Mass my daughter’s in-laws invited me over for tamales mas blues. filling in the blanks. It’s our privilege to watch the composition take shape.” and posole, the traditional Christmas Eve feast in the Spanish lazaroff Southwest. They had a big, happy, rowdy extended family and lots Jo Baeza has lived in Arizona’s White Mountains for 40 years as a teacher, David Wentworth Lazaroff of friends. I usually joined them, but that night I was too depressed. editor, freelance writer, and reporter and columnist for the White Mountain is a naturalist, writer and I told my daughter I wanted to go home and go to bed. Independent. She lives in a woodsy old house with two dogs and a 17-year- photographer living in old acrobatic cat. ‘Less than a thousand years old, this landscape is a work in progress.’ Tucson. He has been visiting It was about 1:30 a.m. when I left the church. A calm snow Sunset Crater for more was falling. The bars were closed, and most of the Christmas than a quarter-century. lights were out around town. My neighborhood was dark except for my porchlight. When I was almost to my driveway, I noticed n To order a print of this photograph, see page 1. a lump covered with snow in the middle of the road. I thought it

32 DECEMBER 2005 arizonahighways.com arizonahighways.com ARIZONA HIGHWAYS 33 P of old carpet to keep the dust down. We had a cooler with bottles to the road and looked back and saw the beautiful sight of my

L of water, and we had our baseball caps. son on the silver ladder in the green alfalfa. His shadow ran a The plane started on the first crank, and Colin ran the rpms quarter-mile. A up and then down. What you try to do is listen to the high whine, The next morning, Colin flew back to college. My only plan and you try to adjust the fuel feed so that it doesn’t run too lean was to call the tribal offices and find out whose field that was and C or too rich. Colin has a good ear for this, and he is fussy about go see the man so he didn’t ruin any farm equipment while acci- checklist of magical spots that I keep in my mental atlas-cum- getting it right. I was thrilled that the thing was roaring, and I dentally harvesting aircraft. But at home I got a phone message: medicine bundle against the day when escape seems advisable. SCOTTSDALE watched his adjustments with interest. “Yeah, say, Ron Carlson, this is Dave, and we’ve got your plane. Call it a holdover from an early life spent along great rivers such E Then the plane died and would not start. We removed the Harry’s got your plane, and it’s a funny story how we found it. It as the Rhine, Potomac and Missouri, but rivers rank very high An Airplane in the Hay glowplug (the tiny sparkplug the size of a pencil eraser), and saw was the Channel 3 helicopter that spotted it.” on that list — especially those that, strange though it may be for that it was burned out. In the toolbucket, we have a plastic jar I didn’t know who Dave or Harry were, except probably pilots an Arizonan to imagine, flow all the year-round. by Ron C a r l s on full of all sort of tiny parts, and Colin said to me, “Look at this.” at the Scottsdale model-airplane field, the kind of helpful guys It wasn’t always so quiet there in that dense thicket of cotton- He held it up and I saw that the superglue bottle had leaked. All you meet in the model-airplane world. wood, velvet ash and willow trees, dark enough that ferns and f you look carefully, you can see the site just north of Scottsdale the parts in the jar were glued into a strange and useless block. Colin arrived safely back in Boulder and was glad to hear grasses can grow, cool enough to make even the fieriest summer Community College, near the baseball diamond and adja- “It’s a paperweight now,” he said. But, a few pieces were loose, and about the airplane. Ten days later, as I drove by on the freeway, I day survivable. A dozen years ago, a small frame house stood cent to the great green alfalfa fields on the Salt River Pima- one of those parts was our extra glowplug. It was wonderful to saw the field had been cut and the green bales lay in a rich array. perhaps 15 yards from the stream, surrounded by mesquite Maricopa Indian Community. be so lucky. While we worked, we could hear the aluminum bats It was strangely easy to imagine one with red and white wings trees in whose branches hung a couple of dozen red-and-yellow Thousands of cars a day fly pinging west of us on the baseball field where they were practic- coming out of each side. hummingbird feeders. The nectar they held drew scores of hum- past the area on State Route I . . . looked ing. Colin screwed the new plug into the top of the engine, and mingbirds from the surrounding desert, so many of them that, 101 without noticing the six we were again good to go. Ron Carlson of Scottsdale loves to seek adventures all over Arizona, but approaching the house, you might think you were coming up on sun shelters and the bladed back and saw We attached the wing, and Colin got the engine rpms where he finds it especially sustaining to visit unusual places in and around a great swarm of noisy bees. It was just the busy whirr of dozens gravel that mark the Scottsdale he wanted them. Then we had that sweet moment when the Phoenix — like the model-airplane field. His most recent book is his story of wings coming and going in that avian version of Phoenix Sky collection, A Kind of Flying. He teaches writing at Arizona State University. model-airplane airport. It is the beautiful plane crept forward in the dirt, and Colin turned it with the Harbor International Airport, a crowded airway that could be a strange little emplacement controller and it began to roll down the runway and suddenly, heard from a quarter-mile distant. populated by ardent model- sight of my son sweetly into the air. The place met all my standards of paradise, with its cool water, airplane folks every weekend, It was beautiful there in the back edge of the campus, nothing its grasses, flowers and trees, its abundant wildlife. I suspect it when their colorful aircraft fill on the silver in the world but the alfalfa fields and the blue sky and our red GILA RIVER met the hummingbirds’ idea of paradise, too, and that of the odd the blue sky. and blue and white airplane. Colin said, “I remember why I like fish that floated by, and the odd eagle that lofted above and the One of the good moments ladder in the this so much.” Like all guys his age, he has amazing eye-hand Peace in a Shady Grove odd mule deer that came to drink at riverside. of ­fatherhood for me was coordination (video games), and he flew the plane low and high, But times change, and so do places. For a few weeks in the win- when I bought my son Colin green alfafa. His in loops and turns, upside down and straight up. At one point by Gr eg ory McNa m e e ter of 1993, and again the following year, and again a few years a remote-control airplane six he handed the controller to me, and I turned the plane once to after that, the Gila River, fueled by a strong El Niño weather pat- years ago, and we spent two shadow ran a the right and handed the damn thing back to him in, I guess, ot far from the spot where it leaves San Carlos tern born in the western Pacific Ocean, came roaring down the years assembling the thing, 10 seconds. Reservoir at the Coolidge Dam, the Gila River enters steep-walled, steep-pitched canyon, pulling out trees, tearing the getting help when we could quarter-mile. He landed the plane perfectly, taxied over, and we refueled it. a steep, volcanic canyon, its bottom strewn with thin beach away, sending the house and its hummingbird feeders from guys at the airport. It is Ten minutes later, way out over the farm fields, the plane banked fallen boulders and flanked by thickets of salt cedar. The canyon far downstream — and making the place altogether quieter. a red and blue and white plane with a 4-foot wingspan and a little and we heard the engine quit. It wasn’t particularly worrisome runs for just a few miles, descending Not long ago, though, on gas engine that whines until your hair stands up. We finished because Colin can glide it very well, and the plane drifted slowly through the Granite Mountains at a a warm ­weekend morning, construction when Colin was in high school, after dozens of toward us in a soft and steady decline. A few seconds later, it steep grade. If it is a year of sufficient As long as the birds return, I wandered up to the spot, Sundays in our garage, gluing this, adjusting that. He’s a scru- disappeared in the alfalfa field across from the airstrip. rainfall, the river runs swiftly through parked myself under one of pulous kid, and we got it all just right. We joined the Scottsdale Colin said, “I’ll get it,” and he took off running, long strides. it, reveling in the plunge, before finally as long as the water flows the trees that withstood the model-airplane club, and the day that plane took flight was quite He’s 6-foot-2. I made a mistake by going to the car to get some making a big bend just outside the lit- flood, and watched the river a day for us. water, and I lost the sight line. When I joined him in the alfalfa tle mining town of Winkelman. . . . this bend in the river will roll by. The bend remained Two years ago, Colin went to college. He’s in Boulder, Colorado, field, we could not find the plane. The field was 10 or 12 acres, There, below a low granite cliff, the quiet, and humming­­birds came and loves it there. This year, he came home for a week, and we and the deep green alfalfa plants were all over knee-high. We river forms a sandy beach lined by tall remain a treasure, part of . . . not in squadrons as before stole the last afternoon of his visit to dust off the plane and have tried to walk carefully through the crop. trees whose branches stretch across the but in twos and threes. They an adventure. I retrieved a stool from the airfield and we stood on that. water, sheltering the stream from the our geography of hope. know a good thing. As long as To reach the airport of the Scottsdale Model Flyers, you drive Nothing. We searched for two hours in the heat of the day. hard sun. The natural arcade makes a the birds return, as long as the through the far parking lot and slip onto a gravel road that runs Dispirited and cooked, we packed up and drove home. There little miniature environment all its own, cooler in summer than water flows, fast or slow, this bend in the river will remain a trea- along the cotton field there and through the community garden we lay on the cool floor and drank water. “What do you want the surrounding desert by a dozen degrees or more, frost-free in sure, part of what has been called our geography of hope — and plots, and then you come to the gate for the airport and the to do?” I asked him. We had lost the plane and were trying to winter, pleasant almost anytime. just the place to find a moment or two of peace on Earth. combination lock on the gate. Remembering the combination be logical. For years, I have been escaping there, taking soda breaks was a clear pleasure. “Let’s go back before dark and look again.” on the way from Tucson to the Mogollon Rim, watching birds, Gregory McNamee is the author of Gila: The Life and Death of an We had the airport to ourselves. Flying the airplane, we’ve I called my friend Scott. He had a 10-foot ladder that I wanted working over notes, taking advantage of the river’s generosity to American River, and other books. A resident of Tucson since 1975, he grew learned, is an enterprise full of checkpoints. We had the rubber to take with us. Back in the green hayfield, Colin and I carried dangle my feet in the cool water, read a book, eat an apple and up in greener and wetter climes and cherishes water when he can find it, collecting rivers and oases on his desert rambles and getting noticeably bands to attach the wing. We had the glowplug and the plane the ladder into the last daylight. I held it, and he climbed way hide out, far from ringing telephones and insistent computers. grumpy when the summer monsoon is late in arriving. He is now at work on and the controller charged. We had our tools and tape. We had up there and scanned the area. “I should be able to see it,” he Close as it is to what we like to call civilization, the bend of the a book about Arizona’s San Pedro River. the battery and the starter. The runway is bordered by an orange said. We set it up four more times around the field. I went across river seldom sees visitors; at least I’ve never felt crowded there, safety fence. They’ve erected six large frames with canvas roofs even on the hottest days. for shade, and the preflight area is covered with yards and yards Quiet and solitude are commodities not so easy to come by these days, and for that reason alone the place stands tall on the

34 DECEMBER 2005 arizonahighways.com arizonahighways.com ARIZONA HIGHWAYS 35 P I stood next to him beneath two massive cottonwood trees

L looking at the fenced cornfield. The swaying trees, cicadas click- ing overhead and a welcoming shade stirred something in me. I A was instantly and forever in love with this man and his Carrizo Canyon cornfield. C We walked the perimeter of the field while he talked about the creek and the land. He described the small ruin site at the western end of the field and warned me not to pick up anything E because of the Apache belief that people must not touch “dead things.” He pointed to markings on the ground and declared that a bear and a coyote had come through recently. Seeing the nervousness on my face, he explained, “Don’t be WHITE MOUNTAIN APACHE RESERVATION afraid of the black bears that roam this canyon; I am bear clan and they are my brothers.” Down to the Cornfield We returned to the truck where he pulled the tailgate down with a thud. We sat on the tailgate and swung our legs like little kids. by K at h y L ac apa We took turns gulping water from a gallon jug while the Oreo cookies we ate left black rings of satisfaction around our lips. e turned west off U.S. Route 60 and wound his way I began to quiet the thoughts running through my head, and down through the little community of Carrizo. allowed the sounds of the canyon to take their place. The steep Slowly, he drove past sleeping dogs, a white church canyon walls echoed the sound of horses and cows tramping and an old woman wearing a traditional camp dress. The pave- along the creek. Red-tailed hawks floated overhead searching for ment ended abruptly and with it, I later realized, my old life. a sunbathing jackrabbit. Grasshoppers trilled their song in the The Chevy bounced along the dusty road, until I quietly asked, heat of the day. A sense of stepping out of time began to embrace “Where are we going?” I tried to make my voice demure in spite me. There were no car or airplane noises. No intrusions from of the jolt that sent my head television or radio. No deadlines or assign- cracking into the passenger ments. No stress. Just the beauty of living in side window. Our children also fell under the moment. “Down to the cornfield,” he Breaking the silence, I asked, “Can I said with a sly smile. Little the cornfield spell. The kids come back?” Again, the knowing, sly smile, did I know it was a phrase “Sure.” I would hear for the next knew it would be a great I did go back. I married the amazing Mr. 29 years. It was our second Michael Lacapa, and later our children also date, and I was attempting to day when Dad hollered, fell under the cornfield spell. The kids knew show him I could be rugged it would be a great day when Dad hollered, and tough, yet feminine and ‘Jump into the truck, we’re “Jump in the truck, we’re going to the corn- delicate — a difficult combi- field.” nation. going to the cornfield.’ They stood up in the back and looked over He eased the truck off the the cab. Thoughts of softball games, food, canyon road and headed straight for Carrizo Creek. Back then, cowpie wars, monsoon rains, fireworks and swimming kept the creek ran pure and deep. The Rodeo-Chediski Fire had them in eager anticipation. This unpretentious cornfield was not yet caused the devastation that would one day clog it with far better than anything Norman Rockwell could create. It was CHIRICAHUA MOUNTAINS debris. He splashed the truck into the water yelling “Woohoo,” a place where time did not exist and worries had no place to kicking his feet and throwing his “free arm” like a true Carrizo reside. cowboy. I still go back. The Apaches believe life is like a hoop, a never- Monumental Memories The truck hit a few large rocks, and I was certain my kidney ending circle. It’s true, for that is where my love for a person and “The combination of broad vistas and intimate alcoves tucked beneath had come loose. He slammed on the brakes and stopped in the place began, and it is there where the journey ends. With the rock pinnacles has always drawn me to Chiricahua National Monument. middle of the running creek. scattering of his ashes under the cottonwoods, I drink in the ‘My father worked there as Some of my earliest memories date to the years my father worked “Get out!” I looked at him with indignant eyes and mouth peace that surrounds this place. there as a ranger. Long after he had transferred to other parks, our a ranger. Long after he had family regularly returned to the Chiricahua Mountains. My father passed agape. “Put your feet in the water. Cool off.” I listen to the wind in the canyon and hear his voice, “Shi transferred to other parks, our away a few years ago, but it wouldn’t surprise me if his spirit visits there Wanting to impress, I jumped into the water and let it run goshk an dasjaa,” (the story ends here), down at the cornfield. still, along with the spirits of the Apache Indians who came before.” around my calves. It was the purest sensation I had ever experi- family regularly returned to enced: a cool, rushing creek on a hot, dusty day. He dipped his Kathy Lacapa has lived in the White Mountains of eastern Arizona most the Chiricahua Mountains.’ bandanna in the water and tied it around his head. of her life. She co-authored with her late husband, Michael, Less Than laurence parent “Here!” He held out his hand and yanked me back into the cab. Half . . . More Than Whole and wrote Curriculum Vocabulary for A resident of Wimberley, Texas, children with special needs. Her heart and mind are forever captivated by Laurence Parent visits Arizona frequently “Hold on!” he shouted as he shot the truck forward at an incredible the springs, mountains, trees, creeks and people that form this wondrous to photograph and visit family. In speed. Up an embankment . . . around a curve . . . out on top. portion of Arizona. addition to his magazine, calendar In one swift motion, he cut the engine, swung his door wide and advertising photography, his and jumped out. Making a sweeping gesture with his arm he work has appeared in 30 books. proclaimed, “This is my ranch. My grandfather gave it to me.” n To order a print of this photograph, see page 1.

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POINT IMPERIAL Rimside Seat

“During one pounding summer thunderstorm on the Grand Canyon’s North Rim, the lightning flashes prompted the few other visitors to flee. I waited among the ponderosa pines to share this view of a rainbow arching over Mount Hayden. Standing on the Rim with a camera on a tripod during a lightning storm is a bit crazy, but for me it’s an annual spiritual event that brings me back to Point Imperial to witness one of Arizona’s most remote and breathtaking views during summer’s dramatic storms.”

paul gill As a large-format landscape photographer, Paul Gill of Phoenix loves witnessing Nature’s raw power and capturing the emotional significance of special moments that lie on the edge of chaos. Photographing in stormy conditions provides that raw power and leads him to capture very dramatic images.

n To order a print of this photograph, see page 1.

38 DECEMBER 2005 arizonahighways.com arizonahighways.com ARIZONA HIGHWAYS 39 KOFA MOUNTAINS

Drawn to when a baby burped too loud or someone fell to their P

knees on the wooden floor with a plop because they’d for- L the Light gotten to pull out the kneeler. All the while, El Niño slept “For me, the Kofa Mountains are all under the holy gaze of La Virgen, known to all the women A about the light, about the way the at St. Anthony’s as the perfect model of motherhood. C sun’s rays slice around boulders and At the end of the services, men, women and children between buttes, caressing cholla and moved in procession down the center aisle, waiting their ocotillo. Because this range sits on SOUTH PHOENIX turn to kneel before the simple manger and tell El Niño top of high bajadas, it receives light how happy we were to have him at St. Anthony’s. We E so pure and clear it takes my breath thanked him for being like one of us, not rich and bossy away. I seem incapable of driving past The Star That Followed El Niño these mountains without stopping and disappointed with our failures, but an infant happy in to behold another sunrise and by St e l l a Pope Dua rt e with a lowly manger who needed only to be fed and sunset. Whenever I am near, the changed and carried about. No one could argue with a baby Kofas command my presence.” hristmas lights twinkled on chicken-wire fences and born in poverty nor demand anything in return except goo-goos, stars of Bethlehem shone over ragged front porches ga-gas and slurpy smiles. Being poor ourselves, we understood in my old Phoenix neighborhood, La Sonorita Barrio. His plight. But unlike the wise men, we had nothing to offer george stocking The multicolored lights cast a warm glow over the harsh sur- except ourselves. George Stocking of Phoenix is a roundings, making everything appear dreamlike and transform- After Mass, we crowded into the basement around makeshift freelance landscape photographer, ing the neighborhood into a fantasy world. It was Christmas Eve, tables set with plastic Christmas tablecloths. My father bought us specializing in the western United States, Canada and Mexico. He and and we were headed for St. Anthony’s Church on the corner of menudo, soup made of tripe and corn, which we spiced up with his wife, Mary, recently returned from First Avenue and Central in my father’s old Nash sedan. green onions, chile sauce, cilantro and a squirt of lemon juice. Then a long journey through New Zealand, My sister, Lupe, and I jumped out of the car as soon as my we ate red tamales, warm and tucked in moist cornhusks, and pan expanding his photographic coverage father found a place to park along the curb and climbed the stone dulce — “sweet bread,” soft and sugary. He bought us cups of hot into the Southern Hemisphere. steps in front of the red-brick church. chocolate warning, “Be care- We took two footsteps for each wide ful. It’s hot.” And he looked at n To order a print of this photograph, see page 1. concrete step, swishing our red-velvet We thanked him for being us, his brown eyes cautioning, Christmas dresses and showing off the but already I had spilled a few shoes my mother had bought for us on like one of us, not rich and drops on the white bib of my special at Kress. Flickering candles, fra- red-velvet dress. grant incense and Christmas trees set bossy and disappointed with By the time it was all over, up next to huge statues of angels greeted my parents had spoken us as we made our way over the church’s our failures, but an infant to everybody in the place, creaky wooden floor. The big statue of and Lupe and I had run up St. Anthony at the altar, holding the happy with a lowly manger. and down the steps of St. “Christ Child” in his arms, held a new Anthony’s Church with other significance at Christmas, asusually ­ he was known for finding kids until our cheeks were bright red, sweating although the night lost items or securing a sweetheart for an ardent suitor. was cold. At the top of the stairs, I peered through the big, wooden To the right of the altar stood the manger, hewn of rough pine doors to the altar, admiring the star with its white light beaming and filled with real hay, sheltering a doll dressed in a white gar- over the manger. ment, El Niño Cristo — “the Christ Child.” Next to the Child was I wondered about all the trouble El Niño had encountered a statute of His mother, La Virgen, and her spouse, St. Joseph. being born in a stable. Now the church was his home, old, won- Gathered all around them were angels, shepherds and farm drous and filled with flickering candles and statues of saints animals, with the beaming white light of the star of Bethlehem decked out in their bright Christmas robes. The church bell rang overhead. It was the same Nativity scene year after year, but still as we made our way back to the car. I looked up at the dark sky, it held us in awe as we knelt to pay our respects to El Niño. and pointed to the bright North Star overhead. The services started solemnly. The priests and altar boys “Look,” I said to Lupe, “there’s the star of Bethlehem!” And dressed in red and white robes processed in, as the choir sang she believed me because she was younger than I and it was from the balcony, and the huge organ with its shiny brass pipes Christmas, and we had seen El Niño resting peacefully in His filled the church with rich, vibrant sounds. En“ Belén a media humble manger. It was only right that the star of Bethlehem had noche un niñito nacerá,” (in Bethlehem, at midnight, a child is to followed Him to St. Anthony’s Church. be born). We stared at people across the aisle, and they looked back at us. Together we created a small sea of brown faces, Stella Pope Duarte is an author and educator, born and raised in South dressed in our Christmas finery, ready to greet El Niño. Phoenix. She wrote Let Their Spirits Dance, a novel portraying an Arizona My sister and I sat next to my mother on a wooden pew my family’s transformational journey to the Vietnam Memorial Wall. Duarte’s literary career began in 1995 after she had a dream in which her deceased father had helped build, the wood, smooth and shiny. My mother father related to her that her destiny was to become a writer. One year after arranged us — one on her right side, the other on her left. the dream, she signed her first book contract for Fragile Night, a collection of “So you won’t talk,” she said, “and don’t you dare laugh — look short stories. there’s El Niño, trying to get some rest.” “How can He sleep with all this noise?” I said. “Never mind about that. He’s God, He can do anything.” All through the services, Lupe and I struggled not to laugh

40 DECEMBER 2005 arizonahighways.com arizonahighways.com ARIZONA HIGHWAYS 41 P On my most recent return to Sabino there were lurid orange gneiss, conveniently poking out of a slope above the Phoneline

L signs warning of “high mountain lion activity — enter at your own Trail where the canyon begins tightening into a parade of offset risk.” After a small flurry of sightings in 2004, the Forest Service V’s. There was a four-armed saguaro on the slope below, its A closed the canyon for several days, and the Arizona Game and appendages swirling outward like a spiral galaxy, and below that can picture the rancher leaning on the gatepost and chatting about Fish Department trapped and removed one cat. Protests poured the whispered fugue of the creek’s miniature rapids. I sat there horses and movies for an hour. C in. Expert opinion on whether the risk had been overblown again, and pondered what this canyon had meant in my life. In Pine Canyon, a blacktailed rattler gave me due respect and was perfectly divided. The Arizona Daily Star consulted seven I sensed the same benevolent embrace I had felt the night of slithered out of sight. At the confluence of Havasu Creek and the wildlife biologists: Three said the cats indeed threatened public the meteor shower. mighty Colorado, I once met river hero Ken Sleight. On another E safety, three said they didn’t and one took neither side. Aldo Leopold, the ecologist and writer, argued for seeing the trip, pioneer rafter Georgie White My inexpert opinion is that the less we try to reconfigure land “as a community to which we belong,” after which we may winked and tossed Lothar and me nature, the better. Science has a lousy record of predicting unin- “begin to use it with love and respect.” Belonging to the commu- This gangly a can of peaches. I delighted in tended consequences, and I wouldn’t be surprised to learn that nity of saguaros and great blue herons and mountain lions and sharing my maps with friends. SABINO CANYON a campaign against cougars had somehow triggered a plague of yes, Homo sapiens, demands a sound mind and a fully function- city kid might The skunks at a campsite below locusts. For my own sake, I like knowing there are potentially ing sense of responsibility. Anything less and we’re on the way to Barfoot Spring licked my carelessly The Canyon That Broke a Fall unfriendly creatures prowling Sabino: It heightens my respect destroying that community, along with ourselves. Even on that eventually fit unwashed supper dishes, but they and deepens my humility. fuzzy winter day of 1995 I understood this. didn’t spray me — even though by L aw r e nc e W. C h e ek When I lived in the neighborhood, A canyon in the neighborhood — what a gift. in. The world their tails brushed my head as I I walked over to Sabino nearly every hunkered motionless inside my n the August night of the annual Perseid meteor It wasn’t morning and hiked 3 to 9 miles on its Lawrence W. Cheek lived in Tucson from 1973 to 1995, when he moved to was willing sleeping bag. shower, we tucked pillows under arms and ambled network of trails. My favorite was the Seattle. He now puts off writing by kayaking in Puget Sound and hiking the At Big Lake, an old-timer saw over to our neighborhood canyon, where we lay difficult to Phoneline Trail, a man-made ledge North Cascades. He frequently returns to his native Southwest to report on its if I was. our futile casts and gave Dick and cities and natural environment. His newest book is Frank Lloyd Wright in down in the road to watch the pebbles carve white streaks in the chipped out of the south wall 400 me one of his favorite lures. Carol Arizona, to be published in January by Rio Nuevo Publishers of Tucson. sky. I remember being disappointed by the celestial show — we convince feet above the canyon floor. It was an and I hiked to Lemmon Creek and marveled at trout in the pools want meatier meteors, and more of them! — but feeling unexpect- intermediate step between land and below massive boulders. Near Cibecue one day I caught a ride in edly comfortable lying on the still-warm asphalt, the charcoal- myself that sky, a part of each realm. I worked Joe Black’s logging truck — on a whim I asked him as he waited to dark canyon walls rising around like the sides of a battered and at home, and it wasn’t difficult to OUTBACK ARIZONA load. He didn’t know me from a tree stump, but said, “Sure.” After broken bowl. In that rocky cradle, I felt fully at home, embraced these daily convince myself — I didn’t have to all that, I began to see that this gangly city kid might eventually fit in a way that no house has ever quite managed. justify it to anyone else — that these Mapping the Way to Self-reliance in. The world was willing if I was. Our “neighborhood canyon” was Sabino Canyon on the north- hikes were daily hikes were a legitimate piece With a topo map in my pocket, I could go at my pace, follow eastern edge of Tucson, one of half a dozen immense cleavages of my workday. I carried a notebook by Bi l l Broy l e s a trail or make my own way, flail the stream with a trout fly or yawning out of the southern slope of the Santa Catalina Moun­ a legitimate and scrib­bled ideas or solutions that crouch beside an anthill to see what the endless lines were bring- tains. For seven years we lived a 10-minute walk away, in a loca- sometimes occurred almost effort- he winter holidays at our house were festive with cook- ing home. And I found I could endure sitting on unpadded rocks, tion that violated my own environmental conscience — someone piece of my lessly. The hiking seemed naturally ies, decorations and guests, but not too gifty. We’d wrap sleeping on bare ground and carrying all I needed in something should have drawn a national park border around the whole to untangle problems. I’ve never modest gifts for each other and enjoy the season’s cheer. the size of a grocery bag. Wind felt good, things glowed at sunrise range and its foothills and locked them away from development workday. under­stood how or why, although Sometime in my late teens, maps started arriving from Santa. and the world didn’t end at dusk. Sometimes I came home with a forever. But who manages a life immaculate of hypocrisy? As Thoreau, who obsessively walked Fascinated by unknown places, I was lured to see the other bruised knee or bloodied elbow, but that happened in town, too. long as I had stumbled into the neighborhood, I intended to take four hours a day, believed the prac­tice invested “the more air side of the mountain. I was amazed to learn that peaks and ridges Somehow my folks trusted me in the world and assumed that the full advantage of the canyon. and sun­shine in our thoughts.” I could see from home had names — names that I’d never heard. world would teach me whatever I needed to know. In fact, Sabino Canyon is almost an environmental showcase When I bought a laptop computer, I had the idea to colonize Maybe it was the echoing voice of Mr. Woodruff, geography But if the great outdoors is a beautiful, patient teacher, it’s also a in an age when success stories are hard to come by. There is a a shady spot under a sycamore and dilute the pain of writing by teacher, or the effect of our family’s cross-country summer vaca- demanding taskmaster. First I had to learn how to read a map and paved road in, but in 1973 the Forest Service temporarily closed doing it in a beautiful place. It didn’t work for a practical reason — I tions, or just some inherited wanderlust, but something inside tell directions. Then, to reach someplace up the trail, I had to rely it and suddenly everyone noticed how much cleaner the canyon couldn’t stuff my library into my pack, and there were always wanted this young man to go west, and east and north and south. on my own two feet. Juvenile whining, wishing, cussing or charm seemed when free from the clamor and aroma of cars. It remains books I needed to paw through for reference. The canyon also put Like most teens, I wondered where I fit in. Pulling petals off couldn’t make it one step shorter. When rain fell, I had to put up closed. In 1936, the canyon barely escaped with its life after up a fierce and intangible resistance that I couldn’t explain, but flowers, I asked: Will I pass? Will I make the team? Does she love my shelter or get drenched. The skillet didn’t wash itself, and the Tucson summoned the Army Corps of Engineers to drown it I distinctly felt. It seemed to resent the intrusion of this infernal me? What’s it all mean? I wasted a lot of energy worrying, mop- price of clumsiness was pain, so I learned to laugh at myself instead with a 250-foot-high concrete dam and lake. The scheme folded artifice, the computer. In two hours I struggled to write three ing and acting bored. I needed a map. My folks didn’t presume of cry. The gift of self-reliance must have been in that roll of maps, only because Depression-crippled Pima County couldn’t come sentences. I never brought it again. to offer me a guidebook; they were too subtle for that. Instead too, though I hadn’t noticed it at the time. up with the money for its share of the tab. But when I taught classes at the University of Arizona, I could they nodded and gave me keys to an old car. Maps in hand, my Maps got my nose out of a book, lured me out of my room and All the canyons of the Catalinas are seductive places, but walk in the canyon early in the day, rehearse in my mind and buddies and I started exploring. dragged me outside of myself, out where Earth’s enormity, majesty Sabino is the crown jewel, thanks to its perennial stream. later that morning give a lecture laced with oxygen and sun- With Gerry, a teammate on the track squad, we found great and many kindnesses both humbled and strengthened me. Maps Although in a dry season it’s barely a gurgle — the Corps’ dam shine — at least it seemed so to me. And on a December morning spots along the Black River to throw down our sleeping bags and led me to see my state, Arizona, and the state helped raise me. might have had little more than a puddle to show for its mighty in 1995, when a knot of worried friends and family confronted catch trout. Kurt and I camped in an abandoned ranch house Imagine. All that in a simple roll of maps. effort — the desert responds exuberantly. me about my drinking, I walked alone over to Sabino to sit on a below Mount Fagan, though we never quite mastered the subtle- There’s a tangled riparian forest of ashes, cottonwoods, walnuts, rock and think hard about my life, whether I could try to face it ties of getting biscuit batter to bake evenly. Somehow a group As a college freshman, Tucsonan Bill Broyles fell under the spell of Professor sycamores and willows, lush in summer and resplendent in fall. without the fog of vodka. of us survived five days of tubing on a stretch of the upper Salt Byrd Granger, who loved Arizona’s funny, poignant, revealing place-names. On some mornings, the birdsong is bedlam, the result of some Ten years later, I wondered whether I could find that exact River during monsoon rains — we’d ride several muddy rapids Now, with three friends, Broyles has compiled a catalog of southwestern Arizona place-names that will appear as a chapter in Dry Borders, to 200 species in residence or layover. I’ve enjoyed my most pro­lific rock, and how it might feel to sit there again. I found it easily: and then walk back for another run. At night we slept in soggy be published in January by the University of Utah Press. He is a research Arizona wildlife encounters in near-urban Sabino — Gila monsters, a distinctive club sandwich of gray-and-white banded Catalina sleeping bags beside the roaring water. associate at the University of Arizona’s Southwest Center. rattlesnakes, coyotes, javelinas, bobcats and on one occasion a On a map of Cochise County, I stumbled upon the name great blue heron that looked big enough to stalk over and stab me Paramore Crater and drove down one Saturday. The hole’s not in the eye with its stiletto beak had the idea occurred to it. nearly as impressive as some others in the state, but to this day I

42 DECEMBER 2005 arizonahighways.com arizonahighways.com ARIZONA HIGHWAYS 43 P

L again how gaunt he seemed. He had been energized by our A conversation. Now he had a translucent quality. I felt a sharp stab of fear for him. After the coughing passed, he fumbled with C GRAND CANYON a pocket on his backpack, pulled out a small bottle of pills, and shook one into his hand. Death, Dreams and I recognized by the label a prescription for one of the drugs E used to hold the AIDS virus at bay. FishingPoles A silence settled between us. “When were you diagnosed?” I asked at length. by P e t e r A l e sh ir e He glanced at me, storm shadows of yearning and nonchalant courage sweeping across his face. e sat on a boulder beside a small stream just off Bright “Two years ago,” he said. Angel Trail near the bottom of the Grand Canyon, That used to be a long time for an AIDS patient to survive after looking frail, oddly content and out of place. A fly diagnosis. I was a medical writer early in the epidemic and have fishing rod jutted crookedly from his pack, which was brand interviewed a lot of young men dying by inches, much too soon. new. A sleeping bag was lashed lopsidedly to his pack frame “How are you doing?” I asked. with twine and his hiking boots were barely scuffed. A curious “Oh, great,” he said, with an utterly sincere smile. combination of weariness and joy struggled for “You going to be alone down there?” dominance on his finely etched features. I asked. I stepped off the trail and walked over to the He’d been energized “My brother was going to come,” he stream beside which he sat, drawn mostly by the said, wistfully. “But he couldn’t get away. sound of the water. I lay flat on the sun-heated by our conversation. He’s a lawyer, you know,” he added with rock and plunged my head into a clear pool until a note of pride. coolness seeped to the roots of my hair Now he had a We said nothing for a time. He watched me with gentle amusement, a “It’s not so bad being alone —not out man in his early 20s with tangled blond hair and translucent quality. here,” he added, with a gesture that keen, somber eyes. He focused on the two fish- encompassed the stream and the layer ing poles projecting from my pack — a fly rod and a spin caster. upon layer of sandstone, schist, limestone. “Sometimes, it’s a lot I sat on the rock beside the stream, torn between my appoint- more lonely with people around.” ment on the Rim and a tug of curiosity about this misplaced “I guess that’s true,” I said, recalling­ my eagerness each night stranger. I hadn’t much time to waste. I’d just come off the river to leave camp and find a rock on the river. at Phantom Ranch after a four-day run down from Lee’s Ferry “Kind of takes your mind off things, out here,” he added. The with a research team counting the last few native fish in a river silence settled, then he added, “When I was a kid, I saw an arti- conquered by trout, catfish and carp. cle in a magazine somewhere about the Grand Canyon. This I’d wanted to stay, for the river had begun to weave its spell. guy had caught the biggest trout I’ve ever seen. Ever since then, But I couldn’t stay. I had played hooky from my life too long I’ve had this fantasy about fishing in the bottom of the Grand already. I had no more time to drift down that hypnotic river. Canyon. So I just thought I’d do it.” But I could sit there a minute beside the stream. After rum- I groped for something to say. “No time like the present,” I maging through the fishing tackle in my pack, I pulled out a bag said, lamely. of trail mix. He watched me, his eyes flicking to my fishing pole. “That’s true,” he said, with a small, secret smile. Wordlessly, I offered him a handful of gorp. Down in the brush and small trees along the stream, the cica- “Thanks,” he said. das started up. My ride waited at the Rim, to hurry me back to my “Going fishing?” I asked. jumbled life. I considered going with him back into the Canyon. “Yes. Yes, I am,” he said with a curious finality. But he seemed content to be alone with his dream of trout. “Good fishing down there,” I said, remembering the big rain- “Listen,” I said impulsively. “I didn’t catch anything on the fly GRAND CANYON bow’s effortless undulation after I’d let him off my hook. rod. You need a spin-casting rig.” I opened my pack, and pulled “Really?” he asked hungrily. “I’ve never been fishing before,” out my cheapo pole and my little plastic box of lures and hooks. Showtime he confessed. “And I’d always heard that the Grand Canyon had “Here, take this.” “For me, the power of light transforms one of Earth’s great spectacles — the some of the best fishing in the world.” “I can’t,” he said slowly. “It’s yours.” Grand Canyon. Here Nature unveils a work of art, an unpredictable “It’s better up by Lee’s Ferry,” I said. “I don’t need it,” I said, setting it down and standing. “Good natural performance. How do you show the great changes of the His face fell. luck down there,” I said, gripping his hand. david muench Earth in the single instant of a photograph? This is the work for “But it’s still wonderful fishing down here,” I added hastily. “I “Good luck up there,” he replied. With a career spanning a me, the passion. These acts of Nature bring me to my highest caught a 20-inch rainbow last night.” I left him beside the stream, but turned, 50 yards up, at the half-century, David Muench level. In recording the timeless moment, I am transformed by it.” “You did?” he asked eagerly. next bend. of Corrales, New Mexico, So we fell into a discussion of fish, hooks and fake flies. He’d never He stood where I’d left him, holding my pole, staring down is recognized as the dean fished, but had studied books. We talked about eddies, undercut into the Canyon that called us both. of American landscape ‘Nature unveils a work of art, an unpredictable natural performance.’ banks, flies and nymphs. He took it all in so eagerly, I begin to feel photographers. He credits guilty, since I don’t actually know much about fishing. Peter Aleshire is editor of Arizona Highways and the author of five books. the tutorship of Nature for The stranger lapsed into a sudden fit of coughing. I noticed his greatest lessons in life.

44 DECEMBER 2005 arizonahighways.com arizonahighways.com ARIZONA HIGHWAYS 45 c HRISTMAS IN a RIZONA t ERRITORY Light and Joy in a Lonesome Land

BY LEO W. BANKS ILLUSTRATIONS BY BERNIE FUCHS

s newspaperman George Smalley of what Christmas meant to Arizona’s on the flatbed and threw change to kids rode along Big Bug Creek just south resolute pio­neers — light and joy in a lone- in the street. A of Prescott prior to Christmas some land. The Arizona Daily Star reported that 1898, he saw the hillside above the camp Every town, hamlet and tent camp cele­ Christmas Day for a typical Tucson family come alive with light. The trails leading brated the holiday, each in its own way. in 1889 included a big meal and a leisurely down from the mountains were thick with And they were very much frontier produc- wagon ride to Fort Lowell or Mission San miners and their families heading to the tions — small, unsophisticated and spare. Xavier del Bac. community party at the schoolhouse, and If Apache raids were possible during a “At the university,” the newspaper noted, each carried a lantern. rendition of Silent Night, just post a guard “those of our local nimrods who were not The glow bathed the fallen snow, bro- and sing away. after quail in the mesquite brush, displayed ken only by the shadows of children danc- In the late 1870s, Tucson’s gamblers their marksmanship at turkey shooting.” ing with glee at the thought of meeting loaded a rented wagonful of food and The first Christmas celebration in Pres­ Santa Claus. gifts to distribute along with gold pieces cott was in 1864 at Gov. John Goodwin’s The episode described in the Arizona to poor families. Late at night, when their log mansion. He opened his home to all Republican served as an eloquent portrait cargo was gone, the “sporting men” stood the town’s citizens, according to historian

46 DECEMBER 2005 arizonahighways.com arizonahighways.com ARIZONA HIGHWAYS 47 Sharlot Hall. Hunter Sam Miller provided tree. Mitchell’s father would load some beef scampering into the darkness, then walked deer, antelope and wild turkey to supple- jerky and a few slices of bread and honey serenely into the back door of the school ment the beef barbecued in the governor’s into a wagon before heading with the chil- and went about his business. back yard. dren for Cedar Hollow, where the best ever- “But just think of Santa with a .45 Colt Writer J. Ross Browne told of a Christ­ green trees grew. six-gun in his pocket,” McClintock wrote. mas party at Fort Yuma in 1864 at which At home the tree was placed in a big can He told of another incident, perhaps true, the ladies broke eggshells containing of sand in the parlor and trimmed with but unprovable, that occurred in a mining dust — probably ashes — and gilt paper cookies, tufts of cotton to represent snow camp saloon on Christmas Eve. over the heads of the men, “in true Spanish and red-paper chains glued with paste In walked a slender, white-haired old style.” One of them was Browne himself. In made of flour and water. man, apparently sick. He sat by the pot- Adventures in the Apache Country, he wrote: Prescott’s first tree was in the home of bellied stove to get warm, then moved to “The mischievous beauty struck me I.N. Rodenburg in 1865. He and six others, the piano, where his playing and singing exactly on the spot where time has already well armed against Indians, went into the brought tears to the bystanders. laid his relentless hand; and I was not sur- woods to cut a fir tree, after which residents Many bought drinks for him. At closing prised at the merry shouts of laughter that helped provide decorations, according to time, the bar owner didn’t have the heart ensued; for if my head looked like any thing Orick Jackson, in his 1908 book The White to turn the visitor out, so he gave him a upon earth, it must have borne a close Conquest of Arizona. blanket and allowed him to sleep in the resemblance to a boulder surmounted by Women searched their trunks for bits of saloon. Next morning the owner found the croppings of gold and silver.” ribbon. Tallow candles were cut in half and old man gone and the safe open, a white Some Arizonans spent their first Christ­ tied to branches with bits of string. Candy wig on the floor next to it. mas huddled around a campfire. Pioneer was made from brown sugar and put into Trouble of a different kind threatened Evans Coleman described Mormons trav- manila bags sealed with flour paste. Bisbee’s first community Christmas party After a final verse eling from Utah to Holbrook, stopping to Rodenburg and his friends searched the in 1881, according to a collection of stories mark the day amid a circle of wagons. town and found only one musical instru- on file at the Bisbee Mining and Historical Kerosene lanterns lit the encampment ment — a battered old fiddle, minus one Museum. of ‘Silent Night,’ as bells were tied around the necks of the string, played by a man who knew only Apaches were spotted in the hills during horses to tell of approaching trouble. Each one song — “The Arkansas Traveler.” the day, and as night approached, the men the families departed of the mothers hung wool stockings stuffed The partiers got around this humiliation of the camp grabbed their rifles and headed with piñon nuts, parched corn and candy by ordering the fiddle’s owner to play the to the schoolhouse on Brewery Gulch. for their respective sticks from the bows of her family’s sleep- song halfway through, then start at the Inside, around a tree decorated with ing wagon. begin­ning and play it again in a different chains of red and green paper and strings of homes with at least Christmas dinner, served from a camp cadence. berries and popcorn, Santa Claus handed kettle, consisted of beans flavored with In 1893, at the mine settlement of Tip Top out bags of candy, nuts and fruit. The men ham bone, fried potatoes and onions, salt- in the Bradshaw Mountains, residents with children stayed inside, close to their one armed man rising bread and pudding seasoned in planned a celebration ball without liquor. rifles, while those without agreed to keep vinegar. This prohibition drew an editorial gasp watch outside. accompanying After the family settled into their new from the Prescott Morning Courier, which The party ended when a figure appeared Arizona home, usually a cabin with a mud likened a dance without booze to “a jackass in the doorway and silently signaled that each group. floor and no windows because glass was without a voice.” Indians were nearby. After a final verse of so scarce, Christmas got a bit more elabo- But the newspaper promised that “femi- “Silent Night,” the families departed for their rate. But not much more, especially in the nine loveliness will be there to scatter cheer respective homes with at least one armed Territory’s early years. and peppermint lozenges,” and hoped man accompanying each group. They all Children’s gifts were rarely store-bought. everyone would turn out to see Little Bare arrived safely. A boy might have received a whittled top or Feet, the finest round dancer in Arizona, The worst trouble of the night occurred a home­made ball consisting of a chunk of “sling his extremities” on Christmas Eve. as Santa was giving the children their pres- rubber wrapped with string and bits of rag. Then, in a nose-in-the-air swipe at the ents. He leaned too close to a candle and Mother would have provided the finishing preva­­lence of rodents in mine towns, the his imitation beard caught fire. He jerked touches by covering it with deer hide. His Courier suggested everyone tote their own it off, smothered the blaze, and continued sister probably got a small knitted handbag, poison: “Come one, come all, and bring a his merry work. or a rag doll that hung from the tree on box of Rough on Rats.” The kids were so caught up in the joy Christmas Eve. Saloon pranksters didn’t halt their activi- of Christmas that none of them seemed Frontier deprivations mothered ingen­ ties on such a religious day. Newspaperman to mind that their hero’s face was now as uity in other ways, too. and historian J.H. McClintock recounted smooth as their own. When it snowed in the southern Arizona an incident in Holbrook in 1890, when a town of St. David, writer Olive Kimball group of drunks set out to rob Santa Claus Leo W. Banks of Tucson looks at Christmas and Arizona Mitchell’s father would harness two of the during his appearance at the schoolhouse. history in the same way. He sees both as special gifts. Bernie Fuchs is a fine-arts painter and illustrator from family horses to a sheet of iron, fasten bells Kind elves brought word of the impend- Westport, CT. to it and load the children on board. Off ing stickup, allowing Santa to greet the four they’d go, caroling across the San Pedro masked robbers with a big revolver pulled Valley on their homemade sled. from his buffalo robe overcoat. He fired online Celebrate the holidays Arizona-style at Another family tradition was cutting the four shots at the men’s feet, sending them arizonahighways.com (Click on “Holiday Guide”)

48 DECEMBER 2005 arizonahighways.com arizonahighways.com ARIZONA HIGHWAYS 49 Spirit of the Poinsettia: A hint of holiday meaning in multiple colors

by C a r r i e M . M i n e r

wended my way through rows of evergreens to the tune bouquet of brilliant red blooms. Those who witnessed the miracle of “White Christmas” as I approached the annual Poinsettia christened the blooms Flores de Noche Buena, or “Flowers of the Festival at Gardener’s World with my twin boys, Blake and Holy Night.” Hayden. I chuckled at the lyrics since I hadn’t had a white Despite the plant’s popularity south of the border, it didn’t emi- Christmas since moving to Phoenix in 1987. But my amusement grate to the United States until the early 1880s after Ambassador turned to awe as I stepped through the candy-striped tent into a Joel Roberts Poinsett discovered it during a Christmas season wonderland of red and green. expedition into Mexico. Poinsett, an amateur botanist, cultivated I don’t remember when I lost my love for one of America’s favorite the red blooms in his South Carolina greenhouse. Years later, hor- holidays — maybe when I discovered Santa Claus was a costumed ticulturist William Prescott named the plant for him. fabrication or when I fully understood credit card bills. I drifted off Today, more than 100 varieties of poinsettias range from the into the singles scene and left the hubbub behind — until my boys classic red to the marbled hybrids. At the festival we saw red, pink, were born. Suddenly, I was compelled to cooperate in the mass white, peach and cream in the poinsettia palette. madness of the holiday season. No longer satisfied with a little We spent the morning listening to local choirs and nibbling plastic tree, my boys decided they wanted to fill the house with on tasty holiday treats. The boys had their faces painted, and I color, music and gifts. purchased some crafty Christmas ornaments at one of the many So there we were trying to find the perfect Christmas tree and a booths. Together we picked out a Christmas tree and then grabbed poinsettia to brighten up the house. Thrilled with the riot of color, a wagon to take our pick of poinsettias. Hayden bent to smell the bright flowering plants. Disgruntled, he One of the on-site gardeners gave us a few pointers on plucking looked up at me. “Mom they don’t smell so good,” the perfect poinsettia. He told us to check for he said. But disappointment devolved to delight still-closed buds among the flowers in the when he spotted Santa under a towering tree made center of the bright red leaves, or bracts. He of tiered poinsettias. And off they went. also cautioned us against excessive leaf drop. Poinsettias (Euphorbia pulcherrima) are tropical When selecting a traditional, full-leafed vari- Mexican shrubs that the Aztecs dubbed cuetlaxo- ety, find plants with large bracts extending chitl, or “false flower.” The warlike Aztecs in the over the lower green foliage. 15th century considered the red and green plant We began our search. Despite their lack of a symbol for blood sacrifices. They also used the a showy scent, Hayden began to fill our little plant to treat skin infections, cut fevers, stimulate wagon with one of every kind — one for his circulation and make red dye. In the 17th century, teacher, one for home, one for Granny, one Franciscan priests near Taxco noted that the plants for Dad. Then Blake got in the giving mood bloomed at Christmas and so shifted the symbol- and we went back for more — Red, White, ism to represent the death of Christ. M. MINER CARRIE Pink, Jingle Bells, Marble, Peppermint, One charming story told in Mexico attributes Monet, Snowcap, Fire and Pink. the origin of the plant to a young girl named Pepita. Although my pocketbook was decidedly The girl’s one wish was to give a gift of great beauty lighter, my boys’ beaming faces also light- to the Christ Child on Christmas Eve. But the poor ened my heart. And as we headed out to our child had nothing of her own to give and so gath- car with our wagonful of flowers, I decided ered a bouquet of weeds plucked from the side of that maybe this Christmas thing wasn’t so the road — which made her even more sad that she bad after all. had nothing beautiful to give. Nonetheless, she Colors of Christmas Poinsettias (Euphorbia entered the village chapel and placed her weeds Even though properly tended poinsettias can bloom again pulcherrima) range in hue from deep red to pale and wishes at the foot of the manger in the Nativity year after year, Carrie M. Miner of Glendale struggles each holiday to keep her Christmas plants alive through pink, peach, white and marbled hybrids, and scene. And then a miracle happened in that village have showy names like Jingle Bells, Candy Cane, the holiday. This year, Carrie says she’s asking Santa for

Monet, Fire and Pink. peter ensenberger chapel — the withered weeds transformed into a ENSENBERGER PETER a green thumb.

online Find a complete list of holiday events at 50 DECEMBER 2005 arizonahighways.com arizonahighways.com (Click on “Holiday Guide”) ARIZONA HIGHWAYS 51 {along the way} by Linda Huntzinger | photograph by Jack Dykinga

The Perfect Gift: An Indigo Sky, a Rainbow and a Family’s Love

pectacular skies happen so often in pairs of hands. “Okay, Mom, we’re going for a Arizona one could almost become blasé. ride. Birthday time!” SWhen I see people trudging with their They hustled me out the door and into the heads down while vivid beauty blazes above, waiting car. I could smell fried chicken. Away I want to stop them, tilt their chin up and say, we went, with exclamations and a running “Look what you’re missing!” I haven’t ever commentary of exaggerated near-disasters such done it, but I have become a sunset collector, a as, “Watch out for that big car—hold on, Mom!” connoisseur— storing Slam on the brakes. “Man, it nearly hit us—that images away in was close!” A squeal of tires, quick cornering memory to share and a fast sideways weave— “You nearly hit that judiciously like little kid!” I gasped appropriately, but of course succulent tidbits with could see nothing. family and friends Eventually we arrived—somewhere. They who live elsewhere. escorted me out of the car, still blindfolded, I try to exercise and holding my hands led me around, telling discretion—I don’t me to step up, duck under and so forth. Finally want to brag since I they guided me up a rocky incline, carefully don’t make the sunsets, positioned me, and with a flourish and a “Ta but sometimes you can’t Da!” removed my blindfold. There spread before help sharing something me was Tucson. The sun, setting behind jagged, extraordinary. If they’ve deep-purple mountains, scintillated in a blaze of never been to the trailing clouds. Southwest, it’s hard for Tucson sits in a huge Sonoran Desert valley people to believe. My with craggy mountain ranges to each of the brother-in-law from four directions. We stood near the entrance to the Midwest once said Sabino Canyon at the foot of Mount Lemmon, doubtfully, “I don’t the city’s northern “sky island.” Beside us the think the sky can mountainside glowed with golden light against a A late-afternoon rainbow do that.” But it does, and our family will drop backdrop of folded foothills blushing deeper and descends into the Santa everything to run outside and admire a superb deeper rose. Behind them the sky was dark blue Catalina Mountains’ Pima Canyon north of Tucson. show. It takes just one experience to make a with storm clouds. Against that dark sky arched believer of you. a radiant, full rainbow. I could only gasp. I was 8 years old when a sunset first Just then, a fine mist of rain began to fall. reverberated through me like a great, silent Each raindrop caught the sun and everything bell. That afternoon I had roamed the desert around us brightened with a shimmering veil of ift-Giving Made Easy hills above our farm in northwestern New liquid gold. We stood speechless, surrounded by Mexico, come home for dinner and stepped beauty beyond words. Arizona Highways makes the perfect holiday gift for anyone who outside into a soft breeze. The sun was just I thought of the Master Artist, who must take enjoys the beauty and splendor of Arizona and the Southwest. setting behind our house. In the east, above great pleasure in creating beauty, and of how G Spectacular photography and insider information about travel destinations the green valley floor and golden cliffs, a huge, fortunate we were to experience this particular, cumulus cloud formation billowed nearly to the exquisite moment. And I realized I would never around the state are featured in every issue. For more than 80 years, readers zenith of the sky. It glowed against an indigo in my life receive a more perfect birthday gift. have experienced life in Arizona with lively and informative articles about the heaven, a tumbled melange of pink and gold and When I could speak, I turned to my children. people, places and geography that attract visitors from around the world. lavender so glorious it made me ache. I stood, Thinking of their efforts to make my birthday ave filling myself with it, stunned by the power special, knowing that this glory happened only Give beautiful issues (a full year) and pay just of its beauty. That was the beginning of my by some blessed coincidence, wanting them 56 % 12 $21 collection. The crown jewel came years later. somehow to know what it all meant to me, I Off the Newsstand for the first gift, and $ for each additional gift. We'll even mail an It was my birthday. The year had been a asked, laughing around the lump in my throat, SCover Price! 19 attractive card announcing your gift. As a bonus, your name will appear on hard one with many challenges, including my “How did you do this?” every issue’s label as a reminder of your thoughtfulness, making this a holiday extended illness. My husband and children My daughter smiled into my eyes. “For your had said nothing about a celebration; I felt sad birthday, Mom.” to remember. and neglected. I came downstairs to prepare My son put his arm around my shoulder, and dinner. Suddenly someone wrapped a pair of grinning down at me said, “Connections, Mom. Giving Subscriptions to Arizona Highways is Quick, Easy and Convenient. arms around me from behind, and with much We’ve got connections.” laughter I was quickly blindfolded by several I believe they do. CALL TOLL-FREE 1-800-543-5432 (Phoenix or outside the U.S., call 602-712-2000) ORDER ONLINE arizonahighways.com

52 DECEMBER 2005 arizonahighways.com {destination} by Rebecca Mong | photographs by David H. Smith

Prescott’s Hassayampa Inn Radiates Historic First-class Charm

rescott’s hassayampa inn debuted and hotel offer picturesque architecture — a blend during the era of flappers, hip flasks and of Old West and Midwest — a lot of history and Lucky Lindy’s solo transatlantic flight. But the chance to enjoy the simple pleasures of a Handcrafted ornaments and P elementary school students’ it became one of my favorite historic hotels just a friendlier and less-hurried time. decorations adorn the Hassayampa few Decembers ago. “Our lobby is Prescott’s largest living room,” Inn’s Christmas tree, below, After getting in the holiday spirit at the Judith York, the Hassayampa’s director of sales, which enlivens a lobby graced with two vintage Persian rugs. Courthouse Lighting Ceremony, I walked a said. “Locals stop in for complimentary morning block to the Hassayampa to warm up in front coffee and to read the newspapers.” Dating from the ’50s, leather sofas, bottom, replaced the lobby’s original of the lobby’s huge fireplace, sip a hot drink and President George W. Bush once checked into embroidered furniture. enjoy the display of Christmas trees decorated the Hassayampa, one of the 500 or so Prescott by schoolchildren. A guest, or buildings on the National Register of Historic maybe a passerby, started to Places. So did Hugh Downs, Loretta Lynn, Tom play Christmas carols on the Selleck and Alec Baldwin. And in earlier years, baby grand piano. In the middle Clark Gable, Will Rogers and Tom Mix signed of “Jingle Bells,” a bunch of the guest register of the hotel dubbed “The Grand us rushed to investigate loud Dame of Prescott.” laughter outside. Some fun- Responding to a growing travel market, the loving folks were staging “ice first-class Hassayampa Inn opened in 1927 on the races” on the slanting sidewalk. downtown corner of Gurley and Marina streets, One would sit on a big block in the middle of many of the attractions that of ice and another would give lure today’s tourists — the nostalgic Courthouse a shove from behind. Whoever Plaza, once-notorious Whiskey Row, dozens of her ghost has been in The hotel, above, still uses its reached the finish line without restaurants, hundreds of antique shops, a string residence ever since. original neon sign, although the name has changed from Hassayampa falling off was declared the of restored Victorian homes and Sharlot Hall Witnesses say lights and Hotel to Hassayampa Inn. winner. Museum, a 3-acre tribute to Territorial Arizona. televisions in the rooms Each year, the City of Prescott Back in the lobby, looking The hotel was named for the Hassayampa River, and stoves in the kitchen celebrates the holiday season at the period furniture and the which, according to legend, renders those who mysteriously turn on with a ceremonial lighting of the colorful Indian-motif ceiling drink from it unable to ever tell the truth again. and off by themselves. Yavapai County Courthouse, left. design, I suddenly realized what Most recently renovated in 2003, the three- A wreath flew off a the Hassayampa reminded me story, 67-room Art Nouveau hotel (think Art door. And Faith makes of — Prescott itself. Both town Deco with a Western twist) stands out with its occasional appearances. vibrant red-brick exterior, “Usually people stately porte cochere, describe an indistinct quaint gazebo and a rose female figure,” said York, garden patio that blooms “but they all say she was red and yellow in season. carrying a small bouquet The hand-painted lobby of flowers.” ceiling, Arizona wall proper pronunciation of the HOLIDAY EVENTS in Prescott Happier stories abound,

murals, period lighting town’s name). NOVEMBER though, she added. Men pro- fixtures and furnishings The inn’s rooms and suites n Holiday Light Parade, pose in the restaurant, some- Location: 122 E. highlight the interior, along reflect the same style and Gingerbread Village times with the ring arriving on Gurley St., Prescott, with an old-fashioned salmon-and-brown color DECEMBER a serving plate or in a glass of about 100 miles gated elevator operated scheme, but they differ in layout n Christmas Parade champagne. Couples marry in northwest of Phoenix. by a specially licensed and furnishings, about one- n Courthouse Lighting Ceremony the gazebo and ride through Getting There: n Frontier Christmas Open House From Phoenix, take hotel employee. A cozy third of which are original, with the porte cochere in a horse- n Acker Musical Showcase Interstate 17 north 50 bar serves patrons beneath the rest being faithfully drawn carriage. Generations of miles to State Route 69 (Exit 262), the original tin ceiling. handcrafted reproductions. On families return year after year then 40 miles west to East Gurley The casual but elegant a recent visit, my suite overlooked the gazebo and to celebrate holidays or special occasions. Street; turn right onto Marina Peacock Dining Room featured one of the eccentricities that make historic The Hassayampa Inn provides a centrally Street to free hotel parking lot. Travel Advisory: Make offers American-European hotels fun: The sink, toilet and shower were each located base for year-round visitors, but advance reservations, especially cuisine with a French located in different parts of the room. December remains my favorite time to enjoy its around holiday times. bistro feel and a unique Guests sometimes request the Balcony Suite, relaxed Old Arizona charm. And you never know Additional Information: concoction, the “Preskit No. 426. It’s said to be haunted. Supposedly in who you’ll run into then. Last year as I left, Santa Hassayampa Inn, toll-free (800) 322-1927, (928) 778-9434; www. Rub,” which enhances the late ’20s a young honeymooning man left swooped into the lobby and headed for some hassayampainn.com; Prescott various beef and chicken on an errand and never returned. His grieving youngsters around the Christmas trees, handing Chamber of Commerce, toll-free entrees (and echoes the bride, Faith, hanged herself on the balcony and out decorated cookies. (800) 266-7534; www.prescott.org.

arizonahighways.com ARIZONA HIGHWAYS 55 {hike of the month} by Christine Maxa | photographs by Jerry Sieve

The Other Painted Desert Trail to the West Traverses Special Geology

rizona has two painted deserts — the the mountains of Mexico. The monarchs head official one between the Grand Canyon right for the yard-high milkweed plants that A and the Petrified Forest National Park in spring grow along the trail. The butterflies and the largely undiscovered one tucked away in live mostly on the milkweed’s flowers, the Imperial National Wildlife Refuge along the concentrating the plant’s defensive chemicals to lower Colorado River. give themselves a bitter taste that repels most Lots of people oooh and ahhh at the official predators. The monarchs sometimes get so thick painted desert — but the pigmented hoodoos, along the trail they land on hikers, especially hills and hollows along those who look at all like milkweed. the lower Colorado With or without a show of Barren, volcanic remain a largely butterflies or wildflowers, geology ash-covered slopes, undiscovered geological remains the trail’s main attraction. left, characterize art treasure. During the first half-mile, the trail the beginning Fortunately, the wends around ruddy mounds, passes of the Imperial National Wildlife Imperial refuge’s Painted a distinct hoodoo and then climbs a Refuge’s Painted Desert Trail takes hikers little hill that gives big views. Colorful Desert Trail, recently on a relatively easy, ash mounds spread to the west. A designated a National Recreation Trail. 1.3-mile loop through bit farther westward, a sliver of the geology as colorful and Colorado River shimmers. Farther along the trail, right, several geologic curiously eroded as A ridge full of buttes rises in the features of volcanic anything you’ll find in east. Made of hard, “volcanic plugs” origin add variety to its better known sibling stuck in the throats of vanished the rocky landscape. landscape. volcanoes and vents, the bizarre Despite the similar formations resist the erosion that removes the color pallets, these two surrounding, softer ridgeline. deserts have created their After another short climb, the path twists back chromatic masterpieces down to the desert floor and enters Shady Canyon using different geological Wash. Animal signs and tracks show that this mediums. The famous Painted Desert around shaded segment makes a cool hangout for reptiles Holbrook is made of layers of sedimentary rock, and mammals. Finally, an odd but beautiful weathered and rusted into warm reds, oranges, assortment of colored mounds closes the loop. pinks and blues. But the Colorado River version So don’t be satisfied with just one Painted Location: 220 miles acquired its unique geology by way of ash Desert, all crumbly, soft and printed out on west of Phoenix. sprayed from volcanoes some 30 million years the map. You don’t have to be a butterfly to Getting There: From ago, scientists say. Multihued minerals colored appreciate an exotic splash of color in a strange Phoenix, take Interstate the cooling rock — iron for the reds, copper for and twisted landscape. 10 east to Interstate 8 to Yuma. Take the U.S. the greens, and aluminum for the pinks and Route 95 North exit and purples. Wind, water and weather then carved A R drive for 25 miles to Martinez Lake C I the details. A ZO L N IF A TRAILHEAD Road. Turn west (left) onto Martinez O RN The short Painted Desert Trail heads away IA Lake Road and drive 10 miles to Red Cloud Red Cloud Mine Road; turn north from the river into a dry desert IMPERIAL NATIONAL Mine Road 95 (right) to the trailhead, located 2.8 landscape that sees, at best, WILDLIFE REFUGE Martinez miles north of the Imperial National only 3.5 inches of rain each Lake Martinez Lake Road Wildlife Refuge Headquarters. year. A handful of prickly pear Warning: Best hiked between November through March; cacti, ironwood and mesquite summers have triple-digit daytime trees and brittlebushes offers a N temperatures. beleaguered token of vegetation. r Additional Information: Imperial ve However, if enough winter rain Ri

National Wildlife Refuge, (928) do falls, wildflowers miraculously ra 783-3371; www.fws.gov/southwest/ lo o cover the gravelly slopes. C refuges/arizona/imperial.html. To San Diego Gil In February, the trail comes a R ive alive with migrating monarch 8 r butterflies traveling north from CALIFORNIA MEXICO

O C 95 I A X N E O YUMA To I-10 Z Before you go on this hike, visit arizonahighways.com for other things M I online R 8 (Phoenix) A

to do and places to see in this area. You’ll also find more hikes in our archive. KEVIN KIBSEY

56 DECEMBER 2005 arizonahighways.com C ollector’s Our Annual Greeting Card to the World Editio

n

DECEMBER 2005

heaven on earth Our Best Writers and Photographers Reflect on the Spirit of Place

Tony Hillerman • David Muench • Alberto Ríos • Charles Bowden • Gary Ladd • Jack Dykinga • Craig Childs • Lawrence W. Cheek • and more . . .